


Unlikely Heroine

by iamgoku



Category: Carrie (2013), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Guilt, I'll add more as they appear - Freeform, Margaret White's A+ parenting, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers (2012), Protective Avengers, Protective Phil Coulson, Snarky Tony Stark, Teenage Drama, Telekinesis, Telepathy, There's so many characters, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamgoku/pseuds/iamgoku
Summary: Carrie White spent her whole life an outcast and being abused by her mother.Now after surviving the house collapsing on her she is brought in by S.H.I.E.L.D to join the Avengers Initiative. But can she be the hero Coulson believes her to be or just the monster that she believes herself to be.Follow the journey of the tortured young girl as she becomes one Unlikely Heroine.





	1. Welcome to SHIELD

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I'm surprised at myself for having not posted this story here sooner, it's been on Fanfiction.net since 2014. But given the fact I saw 'infinty war' on Wednesday I decided on crossposting it here.
> 
> I will only be uploading chapter 1 now ( as it's 3:33 AM here in Australia) and I'm so close to crashing, and I'll upload the other chapters tomorrow.
> 
> Some of this story is a bit dated in terms of my writing style/skill, as I believe I have imrpoved over the past four years, and I may go back and do some edits/rewriting sections, but for the moment, I'll leave it as is.

For anyone walking through Carlin Street, would usually find it peaceful at this time of night, but one house tonight was anything but that.

The house was a two story place, painted in a now faded blue colour that stood out from the surrounding houses that were brighter shades of colour or simply brick built single storeys.

But this wasn't the problem at hand, Sue Snell was standing stiffly near the mail box considering what she should do next, could she swallow her fear and make her way to the door. After what she had seen at the prom she could honestly say she was terrified of Carrie White, the young girl who she once knew as a shy, misunderstood, lonely outcast had been the recipient of a horrible cruel prank from a girl named Chris Hargenson and her friends who thought it would be funny to drop a bucket of blood on her on stage in front of the whole school, and then a majority of the students present laughed at her.

They actually laughed!

But no one could suspect what would happen next, what there 'funny' prank would do to Carrie. She had had some kind of power, a power that she obviously had kept at bay until that moment when she was pushed too far.

And she killed them, she unleashed a powerful telekinetic force that wiped out most of the students and teachers present. She had done it almost robotically while at the same time she was fluid and graceful, her body was flowing with energy and she was wild and unchained.

There were barely any survivors, Sue could count them on her hands and now here she was slowly making her way up the door. She tried to compose herself and appear calm but she knew she was a mess, her legs were shaking and her eyes were filled with fear but she ignored it and slowly pushed open the door.

Carrie White was not in any better shape, she had a stab wound in her shoulder and slashes on her right calf and her left arm but that's not what was troubling her currently, she could care less about the pain as she held her mother's dead body in her arms, cradling her head to her chest as she silently cried in remorse.

 _'no no no no! '_ she thought as she stared into her mother's lifeless eyes, desperate for any signs of movement, any sign that she was still alive even though subconsciously she knew she was too late.

"M-M-Mamma I'm sorry" she sobbed "I-I'm so sorry"

Carrie couldn't believe her mother was dead, and worse she had killed her. Her mind didn't register at this moment that it had been in self-defence, that her mother had tried to kill her in the first place, all she was thinking about was the image of her mother impaled upon the wall, knife's and other sharp objects stuck into her body holding her in place, she had only been there for a moment before Carrie had removed them and placed her down where she was now.

She had been mentally disturbed for most of her life, coupled together with her fanatical religious views Margaret had abused Carrie her whole life, everything she saw was somehow twisted and evil, everything was 'sin' in her eyes. She would constantly be on edge, Carrie never knew when she would snap and then what followed would either be self-harm, abusing her, or locking her in the prayer closet or even worse all three of them, it would be a rarity for her not to be locked in the closet at least two to three times a week. But somehow even through all this Carrie still had an innate love for her mother, she couldn't explain it nor could she think about it any further as she sensed a presence inside the house.

She turned around to see the frightened form of Sue Snell, who was shaking like a leaf and breathing uneasily.

"C-Carrie let me help y-you" she said her voice was pleading and somewhat comforting even though it was laced with unease and fear.

She had walked in on Carrie holding her mother's dead body, she could see that Carrie also had cut marks on her and had deduced that her mother had attacked her. She had heard that Margaret White was fanatical but being here and seeing it first hand was another thing entirely.

Her throat was suddenly constricted in an invisible grip and she was raised off the ground, she looked at Carrie who was holding her arm in the air, mentally willing Sue's body to follow as she cast a glare at the blond who was now gasping for air.

Carrie glared at the girl whose actions had partly caused all this. Tears were flowing freely from her bloodshot eyes as she cast another glance at her mother before turning back to Sue with a look of sorrow and pain.

"Why couldn't you just l-leave me alone?" she sobbed, desperate for some kind of answer.

"I-I'm sorry" was Sue's weak reply, partly because of the iron grip that was around her throat and partially because she was truly sorry, she had never wanted any of this to happen all she had wanted was to apologise for what she had done and to give Carrie some happiness in her life, instead thanks to Chris her efforts had been for nothing, it was worse than it had been before.

Carrie stared at her for a moment taking in her facial expression for any sort of lie, she than turned back to Margaret and couldn't help but notice the still fresh wounds that were apparent on her body, her hands and her stomach as well as her legs were marked with the bloody wounds.

"Look at what you've turned me into" she said to Sue, her voice was eerily soft and gentle as she surveyed her mother's body, as thoughts of the Prom flashed through her mind.

The faces, she couldn't forget the faces of the people in the gymnasium as she laid waste to them. There horrified expressions seemed to be seared into her brain, and the blood…there was so much blood everywhere, she didn't think she would ever forget that night for as long as she lived.

"Don't h-hurt m-me Carrie" Sue begged as the invisible grasp on her throat tightened slightly, she was now more scared out of her mind, she didn't know what Carrie was thinking or what she was going to do.

Carrie now looked at Sue; a slightly sadistic smile was on her face "Why not?" she asked as the smile slowly faded.

"I've been hurt my whole life"

Sue then felt the grip release and she fell to the floor in a heap, Carrie had stood up holding her mother's body in her arms as she slowly walked towards Sue. The house started to shake and groan, there was a low grumbling noise all around.

Sue looked at Carrie as she stood there seemingly unaffected by the house's state.

"I-I Killed my Mom" she said softly, her voice was gentle but filled with despair, she was once again crying even harder than before "I want her back"

"I'm- I'm sc- I'm scared" she whimpered she didn't know what to do, her mother was dead and she was a murderer, there was nothing left for her and she was frightened she had never felt more scared in her life.

Sue looked on in shock and pity as the girl fell to her knees, the house was now shaking even more so and stones had begun to seemingly fall out of the sky, breaking through the roof and slowly pelting the house in hail, this coupled with the house apparently collapsing on itself meant they had to leave and now.

She ran over to Carrie who was hugging her mother's body to protect her from the rocks, she couldn't just leave Carrie here to die, even throughout all that had happened she still felt sorry for the poor girl. She wished she could go back and change things, wished she could have befriended Carrie earlier, maybe there lives could have been different, but now all she knew was that she had to save her.

"We got to get out of here" Sue said as she approached Carrie frantically "give me your hand" she said getting no response from her. "Give me your hand, come on" she repeated trying to make her move as the stones were coming even more fiercely , Carrie held up her hand and stopped Sue in her tracks.

Her hand rested near Sue's belly for a few moments, and a strange look of realisation hit her face.

_Life_

It was there albeit a small pulse, but she could feel it, there was life,

'She's pregnant' Carrie thought as she looked up at Sue and smiled gently

"It's a girl" she said happily as Sue's face twisted into confusion "what?" Sue said.

"You don't know?" Carrie enquired gently

"Oh my god" Sue said as realisation struck her, she was pregnant with tommy's child.

Carrie is still upset as she stares at Sue, she wasn't going to leave momma here alone, but Sue wasn't going to leave her here. Carrie wouldn't forgive herself if she let the baby die as well, she couldn't allow that to happen, she'd hate herself for it.

So in a moment of quick thinking she raised her hand at sue levitating her off the ground.

"Get out !, Get out ! " she screamed in anger and sadness as she sent Sue swiftly out the front door and onto the sidewalk to safety, all she could do was look on in sadness and horror as the house was caving in on itself.

Carrie was still inside, now holding her mother close to her as she sat in the middle of the room as the house was consumed in destruction.

"It's ok mamma" she whispered to her mother's body as she smiled softly. "I'm here" she said as she caressed her head tenderly.

She took one last look at her home as it was about to collapse on her before turning back and hugging her mother tightly, her tears soaking into her nightgown.

"Everything's gonna be ok"

And then the roof came crashing down.

* * *

 

**_(2 hours later)_ **

All that was left of the house was now a sunken crater of wood and stone, a sunken hole was all that was left to indicate the structure that had been there little over an hour ago, Sue had finally gone home an hour ago after waiting there on the lawn for a sign, any sign that Carrie was still alive, but sadly she found none.

The area was now sealed off, the whole street had been evacuated and the roads leading into it had been closed to form a perimeter. Several black vehicles littered the area and there were several people now occupying the lawn, some wearing suits and other wearing plastic bio-suits, they were surveying the area. A single man stood right next to the debris as he looked into a hole they had dug, two men had been sent down into the wreckage and he was awaiting their response.

Agent Phil Coulson was normally a very calm and composed man, but he was feeling anxious and concerned. He had monitored the Carrie White affair closely, S.H.I.E.L.D had contacts and undercover agents sent in to report on the situation and he read the reports and seen the footage, she had been abused and mistreated her whole life by her peers and her mother. They had first become aware of her presence about two years ago; even though her powers were dormant at the time S.H.I.E.L.D had picked up large amounts of electrical and climate interference in the area which was caused by her being under large amounts of physical and emotional stress, they also received a call from Xavier's Institute which confirmed their suspicions and immediately Director Fury had sent in undercover teams to gather all information they could about her and set up surveillance, Coulson was furious when they received their first report as well as the surveillance footage from camera's they placed in her school and in her home.

He had to be physically restrained to prevent him from flying down there right then and there and extracting her, Fury had reluctantly forbidden any direct involvement until they had further development with her abilities.

Coulson had not liked the decision but begrudgingly agreed, he would constantly check for any update on her progress though to ensure that they could intervene when necessary and possible recruit her for the initiative, Fury and Coulson both believed she could be a great ally in the future especially if her powers were to further manifest, Coulson had a feeling that she was destined for great things.

Now it may seem strange and unwise to some to even think of recruiting a seventeen year old to a team of superheroes supervised by a secret international organisation such as S.H.I.E.L.D, but she was more than capable in his eyes, he knew that she could rise to the occasion when needed.

Then the received a shocking update three weeks ago. When they first received the report from the under cover's at the school, Coulson had thought it was some sick joke. That what he was reading couldn't possibly be true, teenage girls couldn't be that cruel in a situation like that.

**_(Flashback)_ **

_A young woman stood in front of her superior's desk, she had just handed Agent Coulson the latest report on Carrie White, and it was quite horrifying to say the least, she looked at him as he read through it slowly._

_His eyes looked up over the document he had just finished reading; they showed he was definitely not happy with what he had just read along with a slight look of disbelief._

_"This had better be some kind of joke, Agent Summer's" he said flatly to the obviously intimidated young woman, she had been on field work for little over four months and her this was her first assignment as one of the undercover agents working on the Carrie White case, a pretty important job for the twenty two year old especially seeing as she was still settling in at S.H.I.E.L.D._

_"No Sir, that is what happened I can assure you" she said weakly, she was just as shocked at what had happened and she knew he would probably go ballistic when he saw the footage._

_Coulson than reached into the folder she had given him and pulled out a USB drive containing the footage of the shower room incident and moved over to the monitors so he could view the footage for himself, his hand hesitated right before inserting the drive, he was tempted not to even watch knowing that it would only fuel his anger at this point, but reluctantly he inserted the drive._

_"Sir, are you sure you want to watch this …I mean they threw..." she tried to say but was interrupted as Coulson gave her a look which said he didn't need to be questioned._

_The footage started out showing the girl's locker room filled with teenagers, they were getting changed after their lesson and showering. One girl though stood out from the rest, Carrie was meekly making her way around the other girls, and her movements were meek and shy as she finally made her way to a shower._

_For the next few minutes Coulson watched silently, nothing seemed to happen until his thoughts were interrupted by the look on Carrie's face as she stared at her hand, it was covered in blood. Her own blood caused by her menstruation, and by the look on her face she had absolutely no idea what it was, only that she was bleeding for no reason and she was terrified, she had cried out for help and frantically moved towards the other girls for help, she reached Sue Snell who was the first to notice her, Carrie had left a bloody hand print on her shirt when she ran into her._

_'Get off me you freak' she said as she pushed Carrie back as the other girls realised what was going on._

_'Look at what she did to my shirt' Sue said to the others, referring to the hand print on her stomach._

_Carrie however had never experienced anything like this before; she had never had it explained to her or anything else related to the subject and thus her mind came to the only conclusion she could think of to justify the situation._

_'I – I think I-Im bleeding to death' she pleaded desperate for any form of help to stop what she thought was her body slowly bleeding out._

_'Oh my god, its period blood' Chris said, making the other girls step back in slight disgust and disbelieve over what was happening._

_'I – Please I think I-I'm dying' she said as she was now crying hysterically, no one seemed to want to help her and she didn't know why , couldn't they see she was bleeding, that she needed help?_

_'Please, help me' she tried once again._

_'It's just your period' Chris said, she was obviously amused not seeing why the 'freak' was acting like this. She than opened up the dispenser on the wall which contained tampons and sanitary napkins, and held one out to her telling her to 'plug it up'_

_Carrie not knowing what the tampon was, instead reached out to Chris trying to grab her outstretched arm, this caused Chris to drop the tampon in disgust as she now had blood covering her arm._

_'Help me!' Carrie repeated, she was now begging for anyone to just stop acting like this wasn't a big deal, she was terrified and no one seemed to care!_

_She was now backing back onto the tile floor as the rest of the girls now were holding tampons yelling at her to 'plug it up' repeatedly as they mocked the distraught girl._

_'Plug it up!'_

_'Plug it up!'_

_'Plug it up!'_

_They continued to chant as Carrie now fell down onto the tiled shower room floor, the only thing covering her body was her damp, blood stained towel as she was consumed by tears as the others now threw tampons and napkins at her. Carrie looked up to see Chris and her friends were now filming it on her phone._

_'S-STOP I-IT' she sobbed 'S-STOP!' All emotional restraint was gone and she let out her sorrow which was drowned out by the ever present chanting of the other girls._

_'AAAAUUUUGGHHH'_

_'NOOO, N-NOOOO' she cried finally, her voice breaking into sobs as she tried in vain to get them to stop, to try and block out everything else around her._

_The gym teacher Ms Desjardin finally came in to inspect the noise, and found the young girl covering in the shower. She instantly ordered the girls to leave, as she went to comfort the traumatized form of Carrie white._

_By now Coulson had a look of utter pity on his face, the poor girl had no idea what was going on. She had only wanted help and yet the others had responded with ridicule and cruelty, he couldn't fathom why they would treat her , let alone any human being like that. His look of pity quickly morphed into a cold, expressionless mask that barely hid the anger he was feeling._

_Before Agent Summers could try and say anything, Coulson had stormed off out of his office._

_She may have not known Coulson very well, but she knew one thing._

_Director Fury was in for a major headache._

_**(Flashback End)** _

Coulson's eyes came back to reality as he finished reliving the memory of that day; he had barged into Fury's office and after ten minutes of him angrily explaining the incident in vivid detail, he then went on to berate his boss for another fifteen minutes, explaining exactly what he thought was wrong with his way of running this operation even though Coulson was the overseer for it and had more in-depth information, and insight into what should have been done.

Fury had listened silently the entire time, his face calm and stoic never changing throughout the whole tirade. When Coulson had finally finished he was slightly red from frustration as well as breathing heavily, Fury stood up and stepped out into the hall way motioning for Coulson to follow him. They had walked for a while without either of them saying anything until Fury finally spoke. He said that he may have overlooked the situation do to other matters, Coulson instantly thought of the Tesseract project, and that from now on they would keep a closer eye on the affair.

He also promised Coulson that the next time an event happened such as this, whether they thought she was ready or not. He would send a team in to immediately make contact and extract the girl right away. Coulson seemed placated with this, even though he was still physically shaken from the event. It was obvious to Fury that Coulson cared for the girl, even without meeting her in person he had a strong need to ensure her safety, he knew Coulson could see something in the girl that he couldn't and that's why he trusted him with a job like this, he was Fury's good eye.

Coulson's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of one of the agents sent down into the wreckage.

"Sir" the agent's voice came through into Coulson's ear piece. "We've found her"

Coulson's body stiffened, awaiting the answer to their objective.

"She's alive"

* * *

 

 

Her eyelids flickered slowly, opening to see white. Wherever she was there was white everywhere, and she was laying on something soft.

 _'Is this ….heaven…?'_ was her first thought, even though she was hoping it was she also knew it was not likely, after what she had done she knew heaven was the last place she was most likely to end up in when she passed on.

Carrie slowly sat up to find herself in a hospital room on a bed, the walls were a pristine white and there was music coming from a radio beside her bed, she looked out the window to see a large tree blowing softly in the wind, she moved out from the covers to sit on the bed and found she was wearing a white t-shirt and green cargo pants and was barefoot.

She didn't know what to feel at the moment, she felt a small feeling of happiness that she was alive, but that was overshadowed by the even greater feeling of dread. When she was sitting in the house with her mother's body, in those final moments she had felt happy, she accepted that she was going to die and she welcomed it, now she didn't know what to think.

She turned her head when she heard a noise coming from the door, it opened and a woman entered the room, she appeared to be in her twenties and was wearing a nurse's outfit, she smiled politely at Carrie as she entered.

"Good morning" she said softly, standing near the edge of her bed "how are you feeling"

Carrie looked at her with a slightly confused expression on her face, who was this woman? And where was she?

"Where am I?" she said slowly, her mind was still trying to process the situation.

"You're in a recovery room at Chaimberland general" she answered.

Carrie's brow furrowed into a frown, her eyes squinted in a suspicious manner as she took another look at the room around her, something wasn't right

Turning back to woman Carrie had a look of confusion, before hardening into an emotionless expression.

"Where am I …really?" she said gently but with a cold undertone that made the woman's smile falter for a moment, before putting on a mask of confusion.

"I'm afraid I don't understand" she said trying to sound civil, but Carrie could hear some anxiety and unease in her voice.

"The radio" Carrie said "we don't get that station in Chaimberland" she said "as well as the tree outside the window" she continued motioning towards the open window.

"Those types of trees don't grow there either" she said slowly as the woman's face now turned blank with a touch of worry.

Carrie now stood up and slowly walked until she was right in front of the woman, giving her a cold glare that sent a chill up her spine.

"Now im going to ask you again, where am I"

Unbeknownst to her, the woman had pressed a small emergency button she had in her hand which blinked red, signalling she needed assistance.

"Carrie-" she tried to say softly but was interrupted by the younger girl who was losing her patience.

"Who are you!" she said firmly

The woman didn't get a chance to respond as two large men clad in black military gear entered the room. This caused Carrie to back up slightly, they were intimidating and she was frightened for a moment before steeling her nerves.

The two men didn't know what hit them as they were quite literally thrown through the wall of the 'room' which was really made of light weight wood which broke easily as their bodies flew through it, the outside view she had seen was actually only a large screen that had been placed by the window to simulate the outside, as soon as the two men hit the ground unconscious.

Carrie ran through the large hole they made, she took a moment to look around to see she was inside, before taking off running to the nearest exit.

"Carrie wait!" the women yelled in vain as it did nothing to stop girl who was now aware someone was keeping her here, and she wanted out.

"All agents code thirteen" the women said as more agents arrived before taking in Carrie's direction.

Carrie ran

She didn't know where she was going until she saw a long corridor which showed the outside

'I'm on ground floor' she thought

'I should be able to find a way out'

She ran out into the corridor which she found was full of agents, suddenly the woman's voice played over the intercom.

"All agents we have a code thirteen, I repeat a code thirteen"

An agent than noticed Carrie as she ran towards where she thought was the exit, now all of the agents present saw her, one tried to grab her but she knocked him down with a telekinetic enhanced punch sending him crashing down into another agent.

She made her way outside the building and was shocked by what she found, she wasn't in Chaimberland at all, and she wasn't even in New England, She was in New York! There were people everywhere although no one seemed to notice her, and the buildings seemed to stretch out everywhere, she had never seen a place so big, growing up in a small town she had never seen anything so large or so bright, it was overwhelming.

Before she could get any further she was stopped by the arrival of several SUV's and other black painted vehicles that drove up in a semi-circle surrounding her, men and women dressed similar to the guards she had taken down when she had awoken exited the cars and half of them were now aiming guns at her while the other half moved out to remove people from scene, until the surrounding streets were all but empty except for her. She started to feel frightened again until she heard a voice from behind her.

"It's ok no one's going to hurt you"

She turned around to see the person talking to her was a man wearing a similar suit to the one's inside, he was medium height with short cut combed brown hair, he appeared to be in his forties, and if she could guess she would say he was in charge by the way the other agents from inside were waiting behind him, he motioned for them to go back inside the building before turning back to Carrie and walking towards her.

Carrie just stood there, unsure of what to do, she knew if she tried hard enough she would be able to get through all those cars, the men wouldn't be a challenge, but they did have guns, Carrie wasn't sure if she could react fast enough to stop bullets, at least not unless she was angered enough, she thought back to prom night when she was able to levitate out of the gym, could she fly? Even if she could there was the prospect of being shot, which didn't appeal to her at the moment, besides this man didn't seem to want to harm her, she tried to use her telepathy on him to try and read his mind, although she hadn't worked on it as well as her telekinetic abilities, she was able to pick up enough to know he wasn't going to harm her, he also seeme...guilty about something?

"I'm sorry about that little show in there" he said obviously referring to the circumstances of her awakening.

"But we thought it would be best to ease you into your situation, instead it seems this idea didn't work for a second time" he said "although Cap did have a lot more to adjust too" he added to himself.

"Who are you" Carrie said trying to sound like the whole experience wasn't putting her on edge, which it was, she woke up in a strange building filled with people who were trying to lie to her, they looked like they had man power, and if she was guessing from her limited knowledge of the world that she had that wasn't twisted or withheld from her by her mother, they were with the government.

"No more lies" the man said curtly

"You've been lied to enough, and I don't want us to start off on the wrong foot….well from me personally anyway" he said sincerely.

"My name is Agent Phil Coulson, I work for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division" he explained

"Huh?" was Carrie's confused reply.

"You can call us S.H.I.E.L.D" he said slightly amused at the look on the girls face. "Were a global intelligence agency that monitors the globe, as well as helping deal with threats that often are too big for any single organisation or country to handle, were the ones who found you and brought you in"

"Why?" Carrie asked, she had relaxed slightly around the now named Agent Coulson, but was now confused at what they wanted her for.

"You're a very special girl Carrie" was Coulson's response. "We've been monitoring you for some time, we had people in your school and others undercover for surveillance, we know about what you can do and were interesting in having you come in and work with us"

Now Carrie felt afraid, they had been monitoring her? For how long? What had they seen? Did they know about the prom? Or that she was a murderer? Her eyes started to tear up again at the thoughts of her actions and her hands started to shake, Coulson noticed and closer towards her in an attempt to comfort her.

"It's ok" he said softly "it's not your fault"

Carrie's head instantly sprung up, her eyes were now fixed in a glare as she stared into Coulson's eyes.

"How would you know!" she hissed raising her hand, she lifted Coulson off the ground, alarming the agents who were still in position next to the Car's forming the perimeter. Her eyes darted back and forth, surveying the men and women who were staring at her in alarm, they were holding their guns tightly looking for any further sign that they would need to unload their ammunition at a moment's notice.

Carrie saw however that Coulson than made a hand sign to them which obviously meant some kind of sign language she didn't understand, and she saw they slowly and some confusingly lower their weapons to their sides, Coulson had his eyes focused on Carrie who was confused as well.

"Why" she asked wondering why he would put himself in such a situation, practically defenceless.

"because I know you better than you think" he said calmly, his eyes showed kindness and sincerity as well as ….understanding, Carrie had never seen anyone look at her this way before, she had barely had any human contact in her life that was truly without malice or cruelty, barely knew anyone that would treat her as a normal human being…..especially after what happened at the Prom.

She slowly lowered her hand and Coulson to the ground, her eyes now shimmering with tears as she started to hyperventilate.

"I-If you say you know me, then you might as well tell your friends to go ahead and pull the trigger" she said her voice filled with grief and…yearning.

Coulson could hear it in her voice that she wanted to die, it may not have been too present but it was still there, and he felt a pang of sadness in his heart, he was normally good at controlling his emotions and composure but this was too much for him to handle, this poor girl who he had grown to care about over the period of two years, now stood in front of him a broken shattered human being that society had chewed up.

He couldn't bear it, she was so much more than this, and he knew it! She was stronger than she thought , not just with her abilities but her years of perseverance, being able to put up with so much being thrown at her by her peers, and even worse by the woman that given birth to her, and yet she still had managed to find the will to continue on, when he knew others who would just want to end it years ago, she had what it takes to be a part of the initiative no matter what anybody said, he knew that she was capable of being a hero , whether or not she did herself.

She was now down on her knees, her strawberry blond hair covering her face as she cried into her hands, he could hear her whispered sobs barely audible, but they were enough to reach his ears.

"I don't deserve to live, not after what I did" she said her voice cracking slightly

"I'm nothing but a murderer, I killed all those people and I killed mamma"

"I'm a monster" she said softly

As soon as that last word left her mouth, she immediately found herself pulled into a tight embrace, she looked up and was shocked to see Coulson was now kneeling down and hugging her, his arms were wrapped around her so tightly. She felt warmth coming from him and not just physical but an inner feeling, it was as if he had a strange way of making her feel calm, like everything was going to be ok.

She still didn't comprehend why though? Why this man she didn't even know was showing her such kindness, more than anyone had ever shown her before, she didn't deserve it. Finally the emotional and physical exhaustion took its toll on her and she collapsed in his arms crying, the tears just kept pouring out as she released all of her sadness and grief that she had tried to hold in. Coulson just held her closely as she cried, rubbing her back in a comforting motion.

Eventually her crying had subsided and Coulson lifted up the smaller form of the young girl as she had cried herself to sleep, her face was now peaceful as she slept completely unaware of the world around her.

Coulson than gently carried her back to his car, he called Fury and told him what had happened, he then arranged for her to be moved to a separate S.H.I.E.L.D base which was more remote, as to avoid any unnecessary interference by the public, even though they had cleared out any civilians before they had gotten a proper look at her Carrie was now very famous, and not in a good way. S.H.I.E.L.D had not been able to completely contain the situation, footage form the prom night had leaked all over the internet within an hour of the event, several students had gotten footage on their phones, as well as from the students who had been in charge of filming the prom itself had gotten high quality video that showed Carrie before and after the prank, for now she would have to keep a low profile.

Many people would be after her, including other agencies and organisations who would want to either kill her or worse, experimentation.

It wasn't uncommon for people with powers such as hers to be sought after by some form of government agency wanting to turn them into a living weapon, or even worse, dissecting them to discover the secret of their powers, one example of this was the program set up by William Stryker back in the 80's.

Coulson swore he would never let anything like that happen to her, Carrie had been through too much already, it would take time and patience, but he was determined to see it through. He was currently in charge of Carrie and her rehabilitation, and as such was only on minor work with the Tesseract project, apparently Selvig had been getting strange readings from it lately, and for some reason Phil had a bad feeling.

Something was coming, he could feel it.

And he knew that when the team would finally be called in, they would need Carrie, She would have to be ready, Fury had given him three months to get her ready for the initiative and Coulson believed he could do it, but getting her adjusted to regular society and teenage life.

That would be a challenge.

* * *

 

Carrie was now sitting in an office, she had woken up in Agent Coulson's car on the way to a separate S.H.I.E.L.D facility, and it was on the outskirts of New York so they were within driving distance. When they arrived she was taken inside the building which on the outside looked like any other office building, although to her it was something completely new, when she got inside however she was amazed at the amount of people there were working there and apparently this was small compared to some facilities. She was then led to Agent Coulson's office where he told her to wait for him, he had to go and submit something to his boss, a man named Fury. She sat there patiently, glancing around the room from time to time.

It was a medium sized room, about the size of a living room. The wall behind Coulson's desk was glass, she could see levels of other rooms outside, many people were working here all dressed in either similar suits, and some wore strange black suits that were skin tight in appearance. Carrie felt slightly safer here than the other facility for some reason.

She took another glance at the office and saw a calendar on the wall; apparently she had been asleep for a week and a half before awakening in the facility.

She also saw three pictures on a shelve on the wall, one was of red corvette that seemed to be an old model from what she could gather although it looked to be in excellent condition, the second was of a man dressed in a strange blue and red suit with a star on the middle of his chest, he wore a matching blue helmet as well as holding a shield which had the same colour scheme, this photo seemed old the colouring on it was fading. The third photo was of a woman, she had light brown hair that went down to her shoulders and was smiling at the camera, and she was quite beautiful in Carrie's opinion. And upon closer inspection she saw there was a caption on the frame which said Audrey, what caught Carrie's eye though was that she was holding a cello for some reason.

She turned around when she heard the door opening, and in walked Agent Coulson. He walked over to his desk and took a seat; he placed a file on the table as well as a computer tablet before looking up at Carrie with a small smile.

"What do you think of the facility" he said slightly eager to see her reaction.

"It's big" she said simply not sure how else to describe this place, Phil's reaction was a small smile. "You should see the Helicarrier"

Before Carrie could ask what a 'Helicarrier' was Coulson spoke once again.

"You're probably still a bit confused about why we brought you in exactly"

"Uhh yeah" she said shyly

 _'It seems there's still a lot of her old personality still present, that's good, it proves that the incident on prom night hasn't completely destroyed her old self, although we can work on her confidence without changing who she is on a personal level, she's very soft spoken and polite and she's also shy and tends to avoid putting herself in situations where she can be at risk of other people tricking her, similar to her reaction to being asked to prom by tommy ross, also she's still very ignorant to the ways of the world, even more so than most people her age, im going to have to work on that'_ he thought

"Whether you know it or not, you've become part of much bigger world Miss White" he said as he pressed a button on the tablet screen, instantly images and clips again to appear which made her eyes widen slightly as she stared at the display.

"These are just some examples of what im talking about, the world is now seeing people like this pop up all over the place, and it is S.H.I.E.L.D's job to monitor and asses these people, see if they can use their gifts to help humanity, as well as making sure they don't fall in with the wrong crowd" he said as he pressed another button which switched off the device.

"Director Fury is the man in charge of running S.H.I.E.L.D, and over the past few years he has been evaluating several individuals such as you who have special gifts, I have also worked closely on this project that we are putting together called the Avengers initiative" he paused to let this sink in.

"Although the initiative has been officially put on hold, so to speak, Director Fury still believes that we will need it someday, and I have a feeling we may need it sooner than he thinks. The main goal of the Avengers Initiative is to bring together a team of individuals who together, can use their gifts to protect the people of earth from threats that are too great for us to fight alone"

Carrie just sat there and listened throughout the whole explanation, she was surprised that there were apparently others out there with powers and gifts like hers, she knew that there were others who could do what she could do, but she didn't know how many there were, or what the range of their abilities were, she didn't even know what she was fully capable of doing.

"Why I've been telling you this is because, we believe you could be one of the people were looking for, to be a part of the Avengers" Coulson said after noticing her thinking over what he had said.

"Me?... but why me" she asked, these people were asking her to join a team of superheroes, and save the world? She was just a kid, barely seventeen, she also didn't feel in any way that she deserved to be even offered the chance, not after what she had done.

She glanced down at her hands in her lap, those hands that were stained with the blood of people her own age, how could she protect people after something like that, would they even want her help?

Coulson looked at her with a small smile. "Because I know that you deeply regret what you did that night, even though it wasn't your fault" he said kindly before continue "That's also why you're not the monster you think you are Carrie. Trust me in my line of work I've seen true monsters, people that kill others without remorse, some who do it again and again because they simply enjoy it. You on the other hand were pushed, they pushed you until you couldn't take any more and finally you snapped, and yes there were a percentage of innocent people there who had never made fun of you, and in the ensuing destruction of the town. But believe me when I say it wasn't your fault, Chris Hargenson and Billy Nolan where the ones to blame not you, you were just a victim of their actions and nothing more"

Carrie listened to him, not answering straight away but allowing the words to sink in before finally looking up at him.

"B-But I still feel responsible for it" she said weakly, her voice began cracking as she continued.

"I can see them, every one of them from that night; I can't forget the looks they gave me when I killed them. They just won't go away"

"And they may never go away" Coulson said evenly.

"A friend of mine has a similar problem, she also has blood on her hands, but she changed. She tries to make up for her past now by helping us protect people, im not saying you have to try and make up for anything, or that you won't move past this eventually. All im saying is that you should give us a chance, and you may find that the more you help people the more you'll be able to cope with your past"

She sat there silently for what seemed like forever, starring into her lap contemplating her options, she certain she wouldn't be able to return to Chaimberland, and she didn't think she could go around freely in society this soon, people were bound to recognise her, she felt that she could trust S.H.I.E.L.D or at least Agent Coulson, he hadn't lied to her yet except for her initial awakening but that wasn't his fault, and even know she still didn't know how she was going to deal with her guilt, or how she would be able to live a normal life, she reached a decision about what to do in the meantime.

"Agent Coulson-" she began timidly.

"Please, call me Phil" he said lightly, he already had enough people calling him Agent Coulson, Stark had mocked him enough having repeatedly said his first name was Agent, he still didn't know that Pepper called him Phil, he was curious to know what his reaction would be.

"Ok, Phil" she said unsurely. She had never called an adult by their first name before.

"You've came to a decision" he said having noticed the look in her eyes.

"I-I have" she said looking up at him.

"I'd like to join the initiative" she finished, her voice still sounding unsure, but there was some conviction in her words.

Phil knew there was a lot of work to be done, but he was sure that she could succeed. She was an unlikely heroine to be sure, but she was much more than that. Phil could see it.

And he knew one day the world would see it too.


	2. Burdened with glorious purpose

_**( 3 months since Carrie's recruitment )** _

Carrie was awoken by the sounding of alarms and muffled noises of people shouting orders and running through the halls. She had gotten somewhat used to the day to day routine of people marching around and yelling orders at one another, yet this seemed like an emergency.

She hastily got up and changed out of her sleepwear into a pair of grey pants and a white long sleeved shirt under a light peach coloured cardigan, not the most fashionable choice, despite several attempts to try and get her to wear clothing more similar to most people her age, she was still adjusting, and was wearing more plain and modest clothing for now.

Besides it wasn't like she could fit a lot of clothing in her room anyway, as it was a basic room with a bed in the corner and a nightstand as well as a closet, and a bathroom. She preferred her room back at the other facility but Phil had brought her along with him only a week ago due to him being needed on monitoring a top secret project, Carrie had met Dr Erik Selvig, an astrophysicist who was working with something called 'The Tesseract', she had seen it once and it had made her feel uneasy, something about it seemed to rub her the wrong way.

The tell-tale sign of the lock beeping on her door alerted her to someone entering her room, but she already knew who it would be.

"Good, your awake, that saves time" said the ever pleasant voice of Phil Coulson, she had practically been glued to the man since her time at S.H.I.E.L.D, which was good as he had been assigned as her handler, and in charge of basically everything she had been doing the past three months.

"What's going on? Is something happening?" Carrie asked concerned.

"There's been some problems concerning Dr Selvig's project, we're evacuating the base" he said as he walked over towards her closet and pulled out a small suitcase.

"Put all your stuff in here, and wait for me outside, I'll be back in a few minutes" he said before exiting the room leaving the young girl sitting there in confusion.

_'It must be bad if their evacuating the whole base, but why?'_

* * *

 

Phi had returned a few minutes later, and had ushered Carrie out of her room and up to the outside of the facility, she saw many people packing away their belongings as well as whole rooms being packed up and emptied.

"Uh, Phil? Just how bad is this 'problem' with Dr Selvig's work" she asked as they made their way to the tar mac.

"We're not sure, there have been some irregularities with the cube, and we've been receiving some strange output and energy readings" he said as they walked across the concrete, coming to a stop on the edge of the helicopter pad, Phil put on a pair of sunglasses as a helicopter came into view.

Carrie smiled slightly; he only wore them because he thought they make him look cool, though he would never admit it to anyone else.

The helicopter came to a rest and Carrie stiffened slightly as she saw Agent Maria hill exit the helicopter, followed by Director Fury. It wasn't the Director that bothered her, although she didn't particularly find him the most approachable person, and he did have quite a temper when angered, but it was Agent Hill, the woman didn't even seem to hide her distaste for the young girl and had frequently protested her involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D and any related issues, all of which were argued and shot down by Phil.

She made her way over to the two and her eyes narrowed as they fell upon Carrie, who looked down slightly to avoid her gaze.

"How bad is it?" Fury asked Coulson who was sending a warning look to Hill as he took of his sunglasses.

"That's the problem sir, we don't know" he replied.

* * *

 

Exiting the elevator Carrie found herself at one of the lower levels of the facility, following behind Phil who was talking to Fury, she tried not to look to her side were Agent Hill was still sending her distrustful glances.

"Dr Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago" Phil remarked as they made their way through the hall, scientists and technicians all heading in the opposite direction were making Carrie nervous.

"NASA didn't authorize Selvig to pull the test phase?" Fury replied.

"He wasn't testing it; he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement" Coulson said evenly.

Agent Hill took her eyes off Carrie and looked at Coulson with interest.

"It just turned itself on?" she remarked as the continued walking.

"What are the energy levels now?" Fury asked,ignoring Hill's comment.

"Climbing. When Selvig couldn't shut it down, we ordered the evac." Coulson replied.

"How long to get everyone out?"

"Campus should be clear in the next half hour."

"Do better" Fury ordered as Phil nodded and turned to Carrie.

"I have to go and make sure everything is taken care off and everyone gets out properly, you stay with the Director and Agent Hill, I'll meet up with you three as soon as I'm done" he said to her reassuringly with a small smile.

"Ok" Carrie said as she tried to smile back, Phil picked up her suitcase and took it with him as she walked quickly to catch up with Fury and Agent Hill.

After catching up with the two, Carrie now found herself descending yet another flight of stairs to a lower level, Hill's voice broke the silence.

"Sir, evacuation may be futile"

"We should tell them to go back to sleep?" came Fury's sarcastic reply.

"If we can't control the Tesseract's energy, there may not be a minimum safe distance." Hill replied as Carrie looked at the older woman alarmed.

 _'Just how powerful is this thing, what is it capable of?'_ she thought as her previous unease of the Tesseract was evolving into a fear at Hills words as she ran her hands over the cross necklace hanging from her neck.

_**"Something that the likes of man should not trifle with, child"** _

Carrie stumbled at the sound of the voice; she quickly looked around to see if anyone was behind her, but saw no one. She was now feeling even more nervous than before, she swore she had heard someone, the voice had sounded like the person had been whispering right in her ear, and the voice was eloquent and slightly accented in it sound.

"Are you coming?" Agent Hill called out from below the stairs, snapping Carrie out of her thoughts.

"If you hadn't realised, we're evacuating here" Hill said frowning as Carrie nodded and made her way to the bottom of the stairs and tried to keep up with Director Fury as Hill separated from them, taking two agents with her.

Before Carrie could try and ask the Director what they were doing, his voice called out.

"Talk to me Doctor"

Carrie looked ahead to see Dr Selvig and a team of technicians who were all centred around a large device which was holding the Tesseract, Carrie looked at the glowing cube with apprehensive eyes as Dr Selvig came around to greet them.

"Director" he said upon seeing him, his eyes shifting over to Carrie who was still staring at the cube.

"Miss White" he greeted, Carrie snapped out of her thoughts and smiled slight at the man.

"Is there anything we know for certain?" Fury asked.

"The Tesseract is misbehaving" Selvig replied seriously, Carrie winced as one of the technicians tried to prod the cube with a sensor of some kind, only for it to repel it and shield itself.

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Fury asked with a frown.

"No, it's not funny at all, the Tesseract is not only active, she's….behaving" Selvig said as he led Fury through their work area, Carrie walking along with them and trying to shake off the feelings she got from the cube, and focus clearly.

"How soon can you pull the plug" Fury asked.

"She's an energy source" Selvig said referring to the cube. "We turn off the power, she turns it back on"

"If she reaches peak level-" Selvig began.

"You're prepared for this doctor, harnessing energy from space?" Fury remarked with a questioning tone.

"Well we don't have the harness; our calculations are far from complete, now she's throwing off interference, radiation" he explained calmly as he looked at one of the monitors.

"Radiation?" Carrie asked with concern, she didn't understand a lot of the conversation, but the word radiation sparked worry in her eyes.

"Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation." Selvig explained, though whether it was Gamma or not didn't seem to ease the young girls concerns as she couldn't differentiate between them.

Fury looked at the cube and back at Selvig when he said this.

"That can be harmful" he remarked with an edge to his voice.

Carrie, hearing this took a few steps away from the cube and away from the two men, and tried to think of something to take her mind off it, when a small paper airplane landed at her feet.

Looking around in confusion, she reached down and picked up the small paper construct and saw words scribbled on the inside.

_' **Look up – Hawk'**_

Looking up from the note she looked around the facility ceiling and her eyes came to rest on a lone figure, sitting on a platform high up, she smiled slightly at the sight of him and gave a small wave, the man gave her a bored looking wave in return.

"There he is" Fury's voice said as he walked up beside Carrie, putting his hand on his com he looked up in the figure's direction.

"Agent Barton, report"

Carrie saw the figure get up and make his way down from the platform on a length of cable, sliding down the rope and coming to a stop on the floor.

He walked towards her and the director, giving her a small smile before turning to Fury and nodding seriously.

"Sir"

Fury motioned for him to follow him as he walked, Barton walked on the right of Director Fury as Carrie hung back slightly in the middle of the two men.

"I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things." Fury remarked.

"I can see better from a distance." Agent Barton replied calmly.

"Are you seeing anything that might set this thing off?" Fury asked, pointing to the Tesseract as a female technician signalled Selvig, the Tesseract experiencing another spike in energy output.

"No one's come or gone, except Coulson and Carrie here, and there clean, as is Selvig, no contacts, no I.M's, if there was any tampering sir, it wasn't at this end" Agent Barton said as both of them stood in front of the Cube, Carrie wasn't as close as they were but was staring at the cube all the same.

"At this end?" Fury said questioningly.

"Well, yeah, the cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right?" he said turning to Fury.

"Doors open from both sides"

Carrie wasn't listening as all her attention was on the cube, she could feel something coming from it, she wasn't sure what, it was if something bad was about to happen.

As if on cue, the Tesseract suddenly sparked with energy, a small blue pulse came from it, startling the two men and making Carrie jump slightly.

But the Tesseract continued to send out sparks of energy as the facility began to shake, Carrie looked around in concern as it felt like the tremors of an earthquake, and turning back to the Tesseract she saw everyone else was staring at it too as it released more and more sparks of energy which began to swirl around the centre of the cube.

Without warning it suddenly shot out a beam of energy, coming to a stop around several censors as the end of the beam produced a swirling blue vortex of some kind, which grew larger and larger as through it, stars and blackness could be seen.

Then suddenly it let out a large pulse as it disappeared, sending blue wisps of energy coursing throughout the facility and disappearing with the air.

Carrie looked on with wide eyes at the figure that appeared in its place, it was a man, kneeling on the ground with what looked like a spear of some kind in his hand which glowed a familiar blue at the tip, the area around him was smoking with heat and the censors were fried, Carrie noticed he was dressed oddly, his clothes not like any she had seen before.

Fury and Barton were looking at him wearily, Barton moving in front of her slightly as if to shield her as several armed agents made their way over to the unknown figure.

He looked up slowly, a grin on his face, which changed as he surveyed the room, his eyes resting on Carrie for a moment as he seemingly took in the sight of her.

This made her even more uncomfortable, as his eyes seemingly surveyed every inch of her, making her skin crawl; Barton seemed to notice as he gave her a reassuring look and stepped closer to her.

"Sir, please put down the spear!" Fury called out to him, the man looked over at Fury and then to the object in his hand, before he thrust it out with a grunt sending a blast of energy towards them, not unlike the cube itself.

Barton instantly threw fury out of the way and Carrie with his free arm before dropping to the ground to avoid the blast which knocked over a piece of equipment.

The unknown man than leapt through the air, soaring across as bullets seemed to do him no harm, he landed and imbedded his weapon into the chest of an agent, killing him before quickly throwing two knives behind him and killing two more agents who were shooting at him.

He fired off another blast of energy before attacking the agent closest to him, Barton and two other agents began firing at him with their pistols, causing the man to fire at them, Barton narrowly avoided the blast but the agent behind him being hit full on, before there attacker turned and kicked a man into a concrete wall.

Carrie had gotten up by now and was looking around at the destruction he had caused, there were people lying on the ground, some injured, others dead. And the machinery was damaged and there were fires in some parts of the area, she brought her hand up to her head to check for injuries, she was glad to find she wasn't bleeding, but she definitely felt some bruising on her midsection.

She looked up to see Agent Barton attempt to punch the man, only for him to grab his arm and restrain him.

"You have heart" he said, before pressing his spear tip onto Barton's chest, the spear producing a light which spread throughout his body, veins sticking out as his eyes darkened completely black before fading to a light blue colour.

Carrie's eyes widened as Agent Barton put his gun back in its holster; all desire to fight was gone, she saw Director Fury put the cube in a containment case quickly as the man was giving another agent the same treatment Barton had received.

"Please don't" The man's voice called out, aimed at Director Fury who had attempted to walk towards Carrie and the exit, which was several feet away.

Carrie's eyes widened at the sound of his voice, it had been the same voice from the stairwell that had spoken to her.

"I still need that" he said.

 _'He wants the cube'_ Carrie thought.

"This doesn't have to get any messier" Fury said with his back to the man.

"Oh, of course it does, I've come too far for it to be anything else" the man said as Fury turned around to face him.

"I am Loki, of Asgard" he said.

"And I am burdened with glorious purpose" he said dramatically.

Carrie stared at him in fear and confusion, before she noticed Dr Selvig stand up and speak.

"Loki…brother of Thor"

Loki turned to him at his words, before Fury spoke up.

"We have no quarrel with your people"

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot" he replied, Carrie cringed slightly at his meaning, still getting over the sight of several dead agents.

"You planning to step on us?" Fury challenged.

"I come with glad tidings, of a world made free" Loki said as he calmly moved across the platform.

"Free …from what?" Carrie spoke up, getting the attention of everyone else as she had been quiet up until now.

Loki's eyes once again were looking at her; and he gave her a grin which made her supress a shudder.

"Freedom, my dear. Freedom is lives great lie, once you accept that in your heart-" he began before spinning around, and pressing his spear to Dr Selvig's chest, his body freezing up as he too was put under Loki's influence.

"You will know peace"

Carrie's attention was shifted suddenly to the roof of the facility, which now was glowing as the leftover energy from the Tesseract seemed to be pooling around and causing the facility to shake slightly.

"Yeah you say peace, but I think you mean the other thing" Fury said narrowing his eyes at Loki.

Agent Barton suddenly spoke up, walking towards Loki.

"Sir, Director Fury is stalling, this place is about to blow, and drop a hundred feet of rock on us, he means to bury us"

"Like the pharaohs of old" Fury said as Selvig spoke up.

"He's right; the portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes before this goes critical"

"Well then" Loki said turning to Clint who fired his pistol at Fury, causing him to drop the case and Carrie to cry out in shock as they all began to move towards her.

She brought up her hands, ready to use her powers to defend herself, but Loki suddenly brought up his sceptre and held it at her chest.

"Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit" he said smiling, before pressing it further into her chest, expecting the same process to take hold.

However Carrie's eyes weren't changing colour which caused Loki to look at her in confusion before his sceptre was suddenly propelled back; Carrie's eyes seemed to go unfocused as her body let out a wave of invisible force which sent Loki crashing back to the ground, before Carrie fell to the floor herself.

The agents under his control came to his assistance; he stood up and stared down at her in confusions and slight shock before shaking his head and making his way past her.

"Leave her; we have no time to waste" he said as the exited the room, meeting up with Agent Hill who was busy with evacuation.

Fury had managed to get up and used his walkie-talkie to call her.

"Hill, do you copy?" he said as he pulled the bullet out of his Kevlar jacket.

"Barton is compromised" he said, frowning when he got no response, he got up and headed over to where Carrie was laying and checked her vitals.

She seemed to stir, prompting Fury to place her arm around his neck and hoist her up.

"Uughhh….Director Fury? What happened" she managed to say as he moved towards the exit, hurrying as best he could as Carrie regained her composure and was walking, though her head was aching.

"Barton He's got the Tesseract! Track it down!" he said into his walkie-talkie, as the roof began to collapse.

Carrie ended up running beside the director as the facility began to cave in on itself, the walls shook and materials began to fall down, she managed to stop several girders from hitting them both, she shook off the headache she was feeling as they both made their way to the surface.

"We're clear upstairs sir, we're good to go" Coulson's voice rang out from Fury's walkie-talkie.

Carrie let out a breath of relief over hearing his voice, she was glad he was ok.

Fury motioned for her to go first as they got into the helicopter he had arrived in, the ground cracking beneath them as they managed to get in and take off just as the ground was breaking up.

The helicopter flew up into the air as Fury and Carrie both looked down at the sight of the facility sinking into the ground.

"Oh lord….." Carrie muttered at the sight of it, it seemed like something out of the bible as the land literally swallowed up the facility.

The helicopter flew away from the facility, and the vehicle came in sight with Loki sitting up in the back of it, following the car as it went off road in attempt to lose them.

Fury opened the door and levelled his pistol at the car.

"Try and stop it if you can" he called to Carrie as he fired shots at them, Carrie nodded, despite not knowing if she could stop the vehicle, the one time she had done it before was when she was in a state of rage.

She moved her hands down in sight of the vehicle, but before she could act, Loki thrust out his sceptre and sent a blast directly towards the helicopter, knocking out their tail and causing the occupants to jerk back in response as the helicopter began to spin around, heading for the ground.

Carrie was thrown from the helicopter by the force of the spinning, landing on the ground with a solid thud, followed by Fury who had leapt down and was already firing at the escaping vehicle.

She managed to stand up, groaning slightly at the pain in her left side that had hit the ground, her body was covered in dirt and some soot.

 _"Director…..Director Fury do you copy?"_ came Coulson's voice from Fury's walkie talkie.

"The Tesseract is with a hostile force" Fury replied as he turned to see Carrie standing and looking in the direction of the vehicle.

"I have men down" he said.

 _"Carrie?"_ came Coulson's voice tinged with concern.

"She's ok, she's with me" Fury said calming the agent before bringing the device up again.

"Hill?"

 _"We have a lot of men still under, don't know how many survivors"_ came Hill's voice.

"Sound a general call; I want every living soul not needing rescue looking for that briefcase." Fury said.

 _"Roger that"_ came Hill's reply.

"Coulson, get back to base, this is a level seven" Fury ordered.

"As of right now, we are at war" he said grimly.

 _"What do we do?"_ came Coulson's response.

Fury didn't answer as he looked over at Carrie who was staring.

"Assemble the team" he said as her eyes widened.

* * *

 

Carrie had been looked over by a nurse, and after a few Band-Aids and some aspirin later she was back on her feet. Exiting the room she saw Phil walking down the hallway towards her.

"So what the doc say?" he asked as she joined him.

"Only a few bruises and some aches, nothing too bad" she said as he nodded.

"Just take it easy ok, don't want you getting hurt on the job" Coulson said as they made their way to the outside of the facility.

"They should all be gone by tomorrow anyway" she said quietly, referring to how her body healed itself, most injuries were gone in a few days, or a week, depending on the severity.

Making their way to one of the S.H.I.E.L.D agent company car, Phil sat in the driver's seat and Carrie buckled up in the passenger side.

"I just got off the phone with Agent Romanoff, she's going to meet up with Dr Banner and bring him in" Phil said as he drove.

"Oh…..but I thought you said Ms Romanoff didn't like him?" she asked.

"No, I said she didn't like the Hulk, not Doctor Banner. Did you see how worried she was last month after the incident in India, thought she'd never leave you alone by yourself again" he said.

The incident he was referring to was a month prior Carrie had accompanied Phil and Agent Romanoff to India were they were keeping tabs on Doctor Banner for S.H.I.E.L.D, it was meant to be strictly recognisance with no actual contact with him. However Carrie had unknowingly met Doctor Banner by chance while in the shopping district, and to make matters worse the sudden earthquake had caused the building they were near to become unstable and collapse near them, this plus the stress from the event had caused The Hulk to emerge.

However, Carrie had been saved by the Hulk from falling debris that otherwise would have crushed her, and he had taken her away to safety, following the hysteria that followed. By the time he had turned back to normal he had been unconscious, and Carrie had been found by Coulson and Agent Romanoff, who, Carrie remembered had been uncharacteristically worried, and had grabbed the young girl and practically dragged her away from an unconscious Doctor Banner and after they had left India, she left Coulson alone to write out the report, spending the next half hour fussing over Carrie and asking her to tell her exactly what happened.

Carrie had grown closer to her after that, despite Agent Romanoff's normal, stiff and professional attitude, she knew the woman was nicer than she appeared.

"Let's just hope she doesn't pull a gun on him" Phil said with one of his small smiles as they stopped at a light.

"Oh, and you wouldn't have to have any of that aspirin left would you?" he asked turning to her.

"No, sorry, why do you have a headache?" she asked.

"Not now, but after dealing with our next recruit I know I will" he said as he drove on as the light turned green.

"They're that bad?" she asked, knowing how Phil was usually able to handle most people.

"Carrie, this guy is an expert at annoying other people, but he's also a valuable asset for S.H.I.E.L.D and a good man, though you probably won't ever hear me say that to his face"

"Who is he?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Carrie, you're about to meet Tony Stark"


	3. His First Name is Agent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carrie has a run in with everyone's favorite genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, but not before meeting the star spangled man with a plan

They had been driving for about an hour when Coulson received a call from Director Fury; he wanted them to rendezvous with him before they continued on to meet Tony Stark.

Carrie stepped out of the car and saw Director Fury standing outside of what looked like an old Gym, it was open all hours. She peered down into the car to see Coulson checking his phone once again.

"I'll be back in half an hour, I need to stop off and pick up some documents, and when I return we'll continue on to see Stark" he said, before giving her a small smile.

"You should be pretty honoured, the guy you're about to meet, he's uh a big deal" Phil said enthusiastically, Carrie smiled at Coulson's attitude.

"Who is he exactly?" Carrie asked.

"Let's just say you should know him when you see him" Coulson said lightly before slowly driving ahead.

"Miss White, It's good to see you up and about" Fury said as she joined him as they entered the gym.

"I'm feeling alright, sir, thank you" she said as they walked past the front desk, it seemed like the place was empty, though the light coming from one of the main rooms and the sounds of grunting and punching told her otherwise.

"Hah, not many people could say that after jumping out of a crashing chopper" Fury said giving her an amused look.

They both came to a stop as they came to the only one of the gym rooms that were currently occupied, Carrie saw a blonde man aggressively hitting a punching bag, he was tall and quite muscular in appearance, and he seemed to focusing entirely on the punching bag, not realising their presence.

She could see him hitting it harder and harder before finally swinging his fist back and hitting it clean off the chain it was hanging from, sand spilling over the ground as the bag broke from the force, Carrie's eyes widened at the display.

She saw him pant slightly before walk across to a row of punching bags and pick one up with one hand and deposit it on the chain, before resuming his hits.

"Trouble sleeping" Fury called out, startling both Carrie and the man, who turned to see them both standing there.

"I slept for 70 years, Sir. I think I've had my fill" the man said as he hit the bag slowly.

 _'70 years?'_ Carrie thought in confusion as Fury walked towards him.

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world." Fury suggested to the man.

The man merely looked over at them, before stepping away from the bag and began to remove the wraps on his hands.

"I went under, the world was at war, I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost." He said putting the wraps into a gym bag.

Carrie knew she had seen his face before, she couldn't pin point it though.

"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently" Fury said calmly, holding a small folder in his hands.

"Wait.." Carrie said looking at the man.

"You're Captain Rogers" she said as realisation flooded her mind. She had learnt about him during the past three months, as Phil had been trying to not only get her up to speed on the initiative, but also other subjects, one being history, since her prior learning consisted of her pre-high school education consisting of home schooling by Margaret, and her high school learning experience had been dampened by her frequent harassment by other students, and teachers who were not much better in terms of her treatment, that mixed with her ongoing home life with her mother and her sheltered life, caused the young girl to be behind on many subjects.

Phil however had been adamant on trying to give her at least basic knowledge of most subjects, many of which she was still learning, as well as the massive amounts of other aspects of life she was still behind on. And he seemed to be very enthusiastic about teaching her about Steve Rogers, or as most people knew him, Captain America. Carrie had been quite surprised when she had learnt of his origins and role in the Second World War; he had been changed from a sickly young man into a super soldier capable of amazing feats single handily and with his team, The Howling Commandos.

Steve smiled slightly at her and gave her a nod.

"That would be me, and you are, Miss?" he asked politely.

"Carrie, Carrie White" she said slowly, waiting for the look of shock or distaste at hearing her name, since most people knew who she was since the events of the Prom, the videos of the events were still surfacing online, and magazines, and newspapers, news channels were still talking about it.

This is why she was surprised when Steve offered his hand to hers to shake, she slowly reached out and shook it, looking up to see him smile.

"Nice to meet you" he said kindly.

"…You too" Carrie said softly, smiling back.

"Are you…..with SHIELD?" he asked, glancing back at Fury with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh, well…" Carrie began slowly.

"Miss White is currently on a trial basis with S.H.I.E.L.D" Fury said, interrupting them before continuing.

"Until the end of this trial, she is not considered an Agent, merely a civilian drafted under circumstances were her particular talents are required in order to maintain the peace" he said calmly, not noticing Steve's eyes narrowing at hearing this.

"Talents… So she's part of the initiative?" Steve asked slowly.

"Yes" Fury answered.

"Don't you think she's too young to be involved in something like this, Sir" Steve said as he glanced over at Carrie, he remembered back in the early days of the war, when young people her age were enlisting, some lying about their age just to go off to war, he tried not to think about it too much, the images of some of them lying in the trenches dead always made him feel sick to his stomach.

"I understand your concern Captain, believe me, but I stick by my decision, and trust me when I say that she is more than capable" Fury said, before handing Steve a folder.

"I'm guessing you're here with a mission, Sir" he said taking another glance at the young girl who was looking at the folder curiously.

"Trying to get me back in the world"

"Trying to save it" Fury said ominously as Steve opened the folder to reveal pictures of the Tesseract.

"Hydra's secret weapon" Steve said with a grimace.

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you" Fury said as Steve looked up at him, Carrie tilted her head in confusion.

 _'Howard Stark, could that be Mr. Starks father?'_ she thought.

"He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy" he said as Steve sat down and looked over the documents.

"And that's something the world sorely needs" he added.

"Who took it from you?" Steve asked as he handed back the folder.

"He's called Loki, He's….not from around here" Fury said slowly.

"There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on, if you're in." he continued as Steve looked down in thought, his eyes glancing over at Carrie before back to Fury.

"The world has gotten even stranger than you already know" Fury said slowly as Steve got up.

"At this point I doubt anything would surprise me" Steve replied casually.

"Ten bucks says you're wrong" Fury said as Steve went to pick up another punching bag, placing it on his shoulder and began making his way to the exit.

"There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment" Fury said as he and Carrie began to follow Steve, she walked ahead slightly until she was walking a little behind Steve.

"Captain?" she said.

"Yes?" he said turning to her as he slowed down to her pace.

"You've seen the Tesseract before….In the War I mean" she said softly to which he nodded.

"Could you maybe tell us anything that might be helpful?" she asked as Steve looked down and walked ahead, his voice calling back.

"They should have left it in the ocean" he said with a hard edge to his voice as he left.

 

* * *

 

After being picked up by Agent Coulson, they continued on their way to Stark Tower. Phil had already asked her several questions about how it was meeting Captain America, he had only met him once or twice previously, one of those times being when he was still frozen in the ice, another had barely been a meeting as he had filed a mission report to Director Fury and had walked in on a meeting between him and Steve, which ended in Coulson stumbling all over himself and almost making a scene, so he hadn't officially had a chance to talk to the super soldier, but he was confident he would soon.

"Ok, here we are, Stark Tower" he said as they pulled up outside a large building with the words 'Stark' on the top in big blue lettering.

"Not very subtle" Carrie muttered under her breath as they pulled up.

Phil walked into the lobby with Carrie in tow and pulled out his phone as they made their way to the elevator.

Carrie watched as he dialled a number as they entered the elevator and waited patiently as he pressed the button to take them up to the top floor, Carrie jumped at the sound of a sudden voice.

_**"Agent Coulson, do what do I owe the pleasure, sir?"** _

Carrie looked around frantically, worried that she was hearing things again.

"Don't worry, that's just JARVIS, he's Tony's computer program and A.I." Phil said reassuring her, though Carrie still didn't understand what an A.I. was.

Phil continued to hold onto his phone as he talked into it, despite the fact JARVIS could pick up his conversation through the surveillance.

"I need to talk to Mr Stark Jarvis, this is important" Phil said as they continued to go up.

 ** _"I will try and patch you into him now, sir"_** Jarvis said as Coulson looked down at his phone to see the number dial before suddenly stopping.

"Is there a problem?" he asked the A.I.

_**"Sir has told me to inform you that he is not currently in at the moment"** _

"Really?" Phil said with a small smile.

"Well if you could inform him that this is an urgent matter, and It is important that I speak with him" Phil replied.

 ** _"I will be sure to express your insistence, Agent Coulson"_** Jarvis said before the elevator once again went quite.

"So, he's not here?" Carrie asked.

"Oh no, he's here, he just doesn't want to see me" Phil said knowingly as the elevator continued to ascend.

They waited for a minute as the elevator was close to the top when Phil dialled the number once again on his phone, this time however he input an override protocol to bypass Jarvis's connection and got through.

"Mr Stark, we need to talk" Phil said as he held his phone out on speaker, Carrie looked at the screen and saw a man appear, she recognised him from some of the files Phil had shown her before, however it was different seeing Tony Stark in person, or through a screen in this case.

 _"You have reached the life model decoy of tony stark, please leave a message"_ his voice said through the phone as he held a straight face, Carrie could swear she could hear laughter in the background.

"This is urgent" Phil said seriously.

_"Then leave it urgently"_

At that moment the elevator doors opened and Carrie saw Tony Stark sitting next to a woman with similar hair to her own, and they were both holding champagne glasses, Carrie felt bad since they may have interrupted a private moment.

"Security breach, that's on you" he said turning to the woman, who Carrie realised was Miss Pepper Potts, Phil had told her about the woman before, she was Tony Starks CEO and girlfriend.

"Mr Stark" Phil greeted Pepper got up to greet him.

"Phil! Come in" she said happily as Tony looked at her in confusion.

"I can't stay" Phil said as they both exited the elevator.

"Uh Phil? His first name is Agent" Tony said as he walked around to meet them with Pepper.

"Come on in, where celebrating" she said.

"Which is why he can't stay" Tony said with a forced smile, glancing over at Carrie who waved slightly.

"Who's the kid?" he said in curiously before continuing.

"What is it some kind of Super-secret bring your kid to work day" he said sarcastically.

"Not exactly" Phil replied.

"Your niece?" Tony questioned to which Phil shook his head slightly.

"You're babysitting for a friend?" he offered to which Phil shook his head again before handing him the digital folder.

"We need you to look this over" he said.

"I don't like being handed things" Tony said childishly, as Pepper reached over.

"That's fine because I love being handed things, so let's trade" she said as she gave Phil her glass of champagne before handing Tony the folder and taking his glass and drinking it as he turned to Phil with the folder in hand.

"Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday-" Tony began, only for Phil to cut him off.

"This isn't a consultation"

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked which made Phil turn to her questionably; Carrie also looked at her in surprise, which wasn't missed by Tony who looked at her in interest.

"Which I know nothing about!" Pepper said quickly covering her tracks as Tony took his eyes of Carrie and walked across the room as he set up the digital folder as he scoffed.

"The avengers initiative was scrapped I thought, and I didn't even qualify" he said turning around and sending Phil an annoyed look.

"I didn't know that either" Pepper said to Carrie who smiled at her response, as Phil did.

Tony continued ranting as he walked over to a console.

"Apparently, I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others?"

"That I did know" Pepper said.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore" Phil said calmly.

"Whatever, Miss Potts got a sec?" he called as Pepper turned to the two.

"Half a moment" she said before walking across to Tony.

**(Tony's POV)**

He looked down at the tablet as he opened up the various sub-folders.

'Leave it to Agent super nanny to show up and ruin my evening' Tony thought as he glanced over at the young girl beside him, something about her seemed familiar.

Pepper was at his side a moment later, pulling him from his thoughts.

"You know, I thought we were having a moment" he said casually.

"I was having twelve percent of the moment" she said with a look.

 _'There's that comeback, not so subtle at all'_ he thought smiling slightly.

"This seems pretty serious, Phil looks pretty shaken" she said glancing back over at Coulson who was still standing there holding the glass of champagne with Carrie by his side, holding her hands over his mid-section.

"Who knows?" Tony said before turning back to Pepper.

"Why is he Phil?" he asked suddenly, glancing back over at Coulson who continued to stand there with his little creepy smile.

"And what's with the kid for that matter" he said before leaning back.

"Hey kid!" he called, which caused her to jump slightly before looking up at him.

"What's your name?" he asked curiously.

She glanced up at Coulson before turning back to him.

"Carrie" she said softly, Tony nodded before turning back to pepper.

'That sounded familiar somehow' he thought.

"What is all this?" pepper asked.

"This is…" he began as he enlarged the files so that they were projected onto several larger screens, opening up the full contents.

"This.." he said as he looked at each of the screens, Pepper was silently looking at them as well, one showing the Hulk attacking a tank, another of Captain America being thawed, another showed a Blonde man and a large metal machine shooting fire at him.

Tony's eyes suddenly spied one of the screens and he looked at it intently.

It showed a picture of Carrie's face beside a list of statistics and a video of her standing on a stage wearing a pink dress, completely covered in blood. She looked enraged and Tony could see several objects begin to float off the ground before she screamed and threw her hands forward, sending everyone present in the room flying back along with tables and other objects. The video then skipped ahead to another scene of her smiling sadistically as she twisted her hand, Tony could see in the corner several people being crushed by a bleacher.

 _'Carrie…..she said her name was Carrie…...Carrie White!'_ He thought as realisation hit him at whom the girl was.

"I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight" Pepper said suddenly, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Tomorrow" he said distractedly as he looked at one of the other scenes.

"You have homework; you have a lot of homework"

**(Tony POV End)**

Carrie could see Pepper whisper something into Tony's ear, followed by him making a weird facial expression and causing Phil to awkwardly look away in Carrie's direction who looked confused, before looking away herself, as she saw pepper and Tony kiss.

After breaking the kiss pepper made her way over to Carrie and Phil.

"Any chance you're driving by the airport?" pepper asked.

"I can drop you" Phil replied.

"Fantastic" Pepper said as she glanced over at Carrie and smiled before shifting on her feet slightly, Carrie looked down, she saw familiar hints of nervousness and concern in her eyes, but Carrie couldn't exactly blame her after seeing her and Tony looking at footage of the Prom, however she was picking up another vibe from her, one of concern for her, as well as a kindness in her eyes that shone through the outer feelings of anxiety.

"You wouldn't mind waiting here for me, while I drop off Miss Potts at the airport?" Phil asked as the made their way to the elevator.

"Um.." Carrie began as she looked back and saw Tony inspecting a hologram of the Tesseract.

"You won't be long?" she asked.

"No, the airport isn't very far and I'll come pick you up as soon as I leave there" he said, Pepper was watching the interaction between the two with curiosity.

Carrie nodded as Phil gave her one of his small smiles.

"Think of it as a team bonding exercise" Phil said.

"That is, if you can handle him for that long" Pepper said in the same tone she used earlier, Carrie smiled slightly as the two got into the elevator, Pepper asking Phil about 'The Cellist' who Carrie knew was named Audrey, Phil had been saddened recently since she had moved back to Portland.

"So!" Tony's voice called out from the far side of the room, Carrie turned to see him strolling over and leaning on one of the tables, Carrie moved over closer to the centre of the room.

"You're Carrie White"

Carrie nodded shyly as Tony seemed to be analysing her.

"Tell me something" he said looking at her curiously.

"When you do your 'thing'" he said wiggling his fingers around dramatically.

"Do you need to use your hands? Or is it purely thought based?"

Carrie looked unsure for a moment before answering.

"I can do it just by mental concentration, though it helps to use my hands to focus it, or-" she began only for Tony to interrupt her.

"Think fast!" he exclaimed suddenly as he threw a small notebook at her from the desk, Carrie instantly brought her hands up in defence, and the notebook stopped in mid-air.

"Hmmm, interesting, I just wasn't sure if you could-look out!" he said suddenly as he sent a coffee mug her way only for it to stop shortly after the note book.

"Please stop doing that, Mr Stark" Carrie said as she lowered the objects down.

"Why?" Tony asked walking over and sitting on the couch near her, still looking at her.

"Making you a bit mad there Snow White" he quipped as she looked at him in confusion.

"I'm sorry?" she asked.

"Well the thing is I read that your emotions are tied to your abilities. So if you get angry you can do more?" he finished with a question.

"…Yes, when I get mad I can use my power at a stronger level than what I can right now" she said before her eyes shifted away from him.

"But, when I get mad, I tend to…." She began only to pause.

"What, you lose control?" he asked sincerely.

She nodded silently.

"Well at least you don't turn green, that's a plus, I don't think you could pull of green skin, it would clash with your whole 'kindergarten school teacher' look you've got going on there " he said light-heartedly, gaining a small smile from the young girl who understood who he was referring to, but then frowned at his following statement.

"Kindergarten teacher?" she asked confused.

"Well I wouldn't expect anyone your age to be wearing a get up like that" he said motioning to her clothes.

"Except if you were entering a nunnery or something" he said offhandedly.

Carrie looked down at her clothes and subconsciously pulled on her cardigan.

"Also!" he said suddenly pulling up the digital tablet from before, having taken it off the console after transferring its data.

"It says here" he said scanning down the tablet before looking back at her.

"That you have Telepathy, among other things?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah I do" Carrie said as she sat down opposite him on the couch.

"So what, you can read minds and stuff?" he asked as he took a sip from the leftover glass of champagne.

"Kind of" she began before looking back at him.

"I haven't practiced a lot with it so far, but Phil has said that in time I will be able to do it easily, I did receive some help from a Professor 'Xavier', I was supposed to go and receive lessons from him soon, but then the Tesseract was stolen and I suppose that I will have to wait" she said as Tony nodded.

"So what can you do with it so far?" Tony asked with interest.

"Well … It's kind of hard to explain, I can sometimes feel a person's mood and some 'surface thoughts', which are more like a vibe I get about someone, and other times….I see things" she said with a faraway look.

"Do you see dead people?" He asked with a false expression of fear.

This caused Carrie to tilt her head in confusion.

"No, why?" she inquired confused causing Tony to let out a scoff.

"Geez kid, haven't you ever watched 'The Sixth Sense?'" Tony asked incredulously.

"No, I didn't really use to watch any movies" she said casually, this caused Tony's jaw to drop rather comically.

"You can't be serious?!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"Mama …. she didn't allow any movies in our house, she said they were too sinful and full of fornication and depravity" Carrie said as Tony looked at her with an incredulous look.

"Okaaaay, what about TV?" Tony asked to which Carrie shook her head.

"She didn't allow a television either"

Tony tried to stop himself from face palming as he rubbed his eyes and groaned slightly.

"I really don't know why I'm asking this after those two answers, but music? Come on you've got to have had music right?" Tony implored as he leaned forward.

"Oh yes, we had music" Carrie said nodding.

"Finally!" Tony exclaimed smiling.

"Does Gospel music count?" Carrie asked genuinely.

Tony let out a groan as he buried his head into a couch cushion.

"Oh my god, it's like talking to an Amish person"

"You shouldn't take the lord's name in vain" Carrie said seriously.

This only got another groan from the billionaire.

* * *

 

An hour later Carrie was asleep in the passenger seat of Phil's car as they made their way back to HQ for the night, they would meet up with Captain Rogers in the morning before heading to the Helicarrier, which she was quite excited to see.

Phil looked over at her sleeping form and smiled, thinking back to when he had returned to Stark towers, and Tony had instantly pounced on him and began to list a number of movies and bands that she had to be introduced to, and demanding to arrange a movie night and ranting about several other things before they had finally left.

Coulson yawned slightly as they pulled into HQ, he was looking forward to as much sleep as he could get, especially since tomorrow would be a big day for everyone.


	4. Oh No This Is Much Worse

The next day, Phil got up bright and early to prepare for their trip to the Helicarrier. He had awoken Carrie at Six AM and she had prepared some minor essentials, before they both headed out to the nearby S.H.I. aircraft hangar and boarded a Quinjet and set out to pick up Captain Rogers.

Carrie had fallen asleep again, soon before they had picked up Steve and was now sleeping peacefully on one of the benches in the Quinjet, a rolled up jacket serving as a pillow as she slept soundly.

"We're about forty minutes out from home base, sir" one of the pilots said as the Quinjet flew across the ocean, Phil checked the radar at his post before taking off his headphones and standing up.

Steve sat opposite the bench Carrie was sleeping on, looking through a digital tablet with information playing out in front of him; Phil had walked over closer to Steve as he was reading.

"So this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?" he asked, looking up at Coulson who nodded.

"A lot of people were" Coulson replied.

"You were the world's first super hero" he continued with admiration in his voice.

"Banner thought Gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula." He said as Steve watched footage of the Hulk.

"Didn't really go his way, did it" Steve said as he looked at the destruction on the screen.

"Not so much" Phil answered calmly.

"When he's not that thing though, the guys like a Steven Hawking"

Steve looked up at him with confusion at the name.

"He's like a…smart person" Phil said, realising that Steve had no clue who was referring to, this reminded Coulson of his ongoing lessons with Carrie.

His minded drifted over to the young girl as he turned to look at her, smiling at her peaceful form. He was thankful that she hadn't experienced any nightmares in a while, which she had been frequently having during her first month at S.H.I.E.L.D, after that they had reduced in number but were still occurring on a semi-regular basis. She would often cause medium to severe damage to her room as well as wake up screaming. Coulson could remember one time were it was so bad she had to be sedated to avoid harming anyone, as she was still experiencing the nightmare despite being awake.

Steve had noticed the Agent's attention was focused on Carrie, and glanced over at her, before looking down at the tablet and moving Doctor Banner's file to the edge of the screen and moved Carrie's into the centre.

He hadn't looked at her file the night before, having gone through several others that were relevant to the mission at hand. But now found himself reading with interest, but that quickly changed as he read of her abilities.

Coulson was now looking at Steve, knowing he was going through Carrie's file and silently waiting for the question he knew would come.

"So…..we have people that can do ….this now?" He said referring to her powers and abilities.

"Not everyone" Phil replied casually.

Steve nodded as he read on, but found his eyes widening in shock as he read her history, Phil's mouth formed a thin line as he knew the section that Steve was going through, the Captain's expression was growing more and more shocked as he read on, and anger and disgust flashed in his eyes, though Coulson could see that they were not directed towards Carrie, but towards those who had antagonised her and abused her, namely her peers, and Margaret.

Steve finally came to the bottom of the file, and his finger hovered over the footage for a moment before he clicked the smaller screen which enlarged and showed the Prom footage, which he had put on mute before selecting, not wanting to wake the girl up, especially not with what he was watching.

Coulson watched and waited, a minute later Steve put the tablet down and looked over at the young girl with a saddened expression.

"I can't believe it" he said slowly.

"She's had a difficult life" Phil said as he looked down at her from his position.

"More like horrific" Steve said as he clenched his fists at his side.

"How could her own mother treat her like that? And say she was a Christian woman, while physically abusing her daughter and locking her in a closet for hours-days even!" Steve exclaimed, though careful not to raise his voice loud enough to wake Carrie.

"And her peers in school!" Steve continued, Phil watched as Steve struggled to find words at this point.

"I don't even want to think about what she went through at their hands" he said lowly, before taking a deep breath to calm himself, he was definitely going to have to ask Coulson more about it later on, seeing as the man was Carrie's handler and the two seemed pretty close.

The Quinjet was filled with silence for several minutes before Coulson decided to change the subject, hoping to break the ice.

"I gotta say it's an honour to meet you, officially" Coulson said smiling down at Steve who smiled back kindly.

"I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping." he continued, Steve looked down slightly with an expression halfway between amused and uncomfortable.

"I mean, I was….I was present, while you were unconscious, from the…ice" Coulson said awkwardly as Steve had gotten up and made his way to the front of the Quinjet, looking out onto the Sea as they flew towards their destination, Coulson moving to stand by his side.

"You know, it's really, it's just a...just a huge honour to have you on board." Phil said genuinely, trying to not embarrass himself any further in front of his idol.

"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job" Steve said looking ahead.

"Oh, you are. Absolutely" Coulson said quickly and reassuringly.

"Uh...we've made some modifications to the uniform." Coulson said suddenly.

"I had a little design input" he continued, smiling as he looked at Steve who turned to him with confused.

"The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little…... old fashioned?" Steve questioned.

Coulson paused for a moment as he looked down and smiled before looking back up at Steve.

"Everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light,  
people might just need a little old fashioned." He replied earnestly.

* * *

 

Half an hour later, and the Quinjet had arrived at the Helicarrier. Carrie had awoken and greeted Steve, apologising for being asleep for the duration of the trip, the Super Soldier merely waved it off with a smile and said she needed the rest, Carrie was grateful for being asleep as she still hadn't gotten used to flying in aircraft, having no experience flying in one before three months prior, besides her use of levitation at Prom, which she had struggled to reproduce since.

The Quinjet touched down slowly, and Carrie looked out the window to see dozens of soldiers and agents littered across the surrounding area, as well as a variety and planes and jets, after the Quinjet had powered down Phil had led them out of the Cargo door, were Agent Romanoff awaited them in civilian attire.

"Agent Romanoff" Coulson greeted her smiling.

"Captain Rogers" he said referring to Steve.

"Ma'am" Steve greeted her as he nodded politely.

"Hi" Natasha said shortly before looking at Coulson.

"They need you on the bridge, they're starting the face trace" she said as Coulson nodded and began walking towards one of the entrances.

"I'll see you there" he said to Natasha before turning to Carrie who waved as he nodded and continued inside.

"It's good to see you again" Natasha said to Carrie with a small smile which she usually reserved for her few friends, though Carrie still wasn't sure if the older woman viewed her as such, or was just being polite.

"It's good to see you as well, Ms Romanoff" Carrie said politely.

"How did your mission go?" Carrie asked.

"Well, I managed to get the good doctor here without causing any property damage or risk to civilians, so I say it went ok" she answered, Carrie looked down slightly at her word choice.

"He's not a bad person, you know" she said.

"I Know Doctor Banner isn't-"

"I wasn't talking about Doctor Banner" Carrie said softly.

Natasha's eyes widened slightly as she realised Carrie was referring to The Hulk.

Steve didn't seem to pick up on the meaning as he looked at the exchange in confusion, before Natasha looked away for a moment before moving away from the Quinjet as Steve and Carrie followed her.

"It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice" Natasha said to Steve.

"I thought Coulson was gonna swoon" she said with amusement.

"Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" she asked.

"Trading cards?" Steve asked, as Carrie looked between them.

"They're vintage, he's very proud" Natasha said.

Carrie turned to look ahead and her expression brightened upon seeing another familiar face. Doctor Banner was standing a few feet from a jet, and was glancing around with a nervous expression as he awkwardly stumbled around the bridge.

"Dr Banner" Steve greeted as they approached him; he instantly turned and walked towards them.

"Oh, yeah hi" he said as he shook Steve's hand.

"They told me you'd be coming" he continued, his eyes drifting over to Carrie who waved at him, his eyes darted from her to Agent Romanoff. During their meeting the previous day in Calcutta, Bruce had been informed that Carrie was a semi-member of S.H.I.E.L.D, but Natasha had quickly informed him that the meeting between him and Carrie was not set up, as he had instantly thought she had acted kind towards him as a way to gain his trust and conduct any given orders. He was relieved to hear that it had been purely coincidental, since he had felt at ease while talking to the young girl, and had been momentarily distracted from his problems and worries as they chatted, Carrie showed him kindness in their short meeting that he had been deprived of for some time.

Steve's voice interrupted his train of thought.

"Word is you can find the cube" Steve said.

"Is that the only word on me?" Dr Banner said looking around, knowing that people were more than likely talking about him being on the Helicarrier, and being a potential problem on top of their current situation.

"It's the only word I care about" Steve said honestly, knowing what Dr Banner meant.

Bruce nodded gratefully at Steve's courteous response.

"Must be strange for you, all of this" Dr Banner said, motioning to the Helicarrier.

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar" he said spying a small platoon of soldiers marching in two lines.

"Gentleman, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe" Natasha said stepping between the two of them.

The two men looked around as crew members began to prepare for their departure and securing cargo, Carrie looked around in confusion.

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked as he, Bruce and Carrie walked forward from Natasha, and closer to the edge to observe what was going on.

"Really? They wanted me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Bruce said wryly.

However upon reaching the edge of the Helicarrier, the three realised that it was not preparing to submerge, but quite the opposite as large turbine engine propellers were rising up from the water and beginning to spin.

 _'This thing…flies?'_ Carrie thought in amazement, that something so large could get into the air, let alone be manoeuvred in it.

"Oh, no. This is much worse" Bruce said in the same tone as before.

They were quickly ushered inside by Natasha, who began to lead them to the main control room. Steve was looking around in interest, and Bruce took the time to glance at Carrie who was walking on the left of him, she was switching between looking at the surroundings and glancing at Bruce.

"So, uh, it was a bit of a surprise, finding out you were with S.H.I.E.L.D" He said to her with a small smile as they walked, Steve and Natasha were seemingly too distracted to listen in to their conversation.

"Oh, yeah" Carrie said shyly, looking down before glancing up at him.

"I know you weren't trying anything that day, by the way" he said reassuring her.

Carrie looked at him with surprise, which quickly turned to relief, she had wanted to explain the truth to him when she had a chance to, but it seems Natasha had filled him in for her.

"It was a bit of a surprise that you agreed to come here" she said after a few moments of silence.

"Yes, well when Director Fury wants someone, he usually gets them, even if he needs to use.…unorthodox methods" Bruce said, Carrie turning to him with concern showing on her face.

"They didn't…..threaten you, did they?"

"No, no. Agent Romanoff had a young girl lure me out to the city limits, under the pretence that her father was sick, and then filled me in on the situation." He said.

"I may have frightened her a bit however" he continued, with a ghost of a smile on his face.

"How?" Carrie asked genuinely.

"I yelled at her suddenly and she pulled a gun on me from under the table" he said sheepishly.

"She pulled a gun on you?" Carrie asked with widened eyes.

"Yeah, and she had an armed squad on guard out front" he continued, before he looked at her with questioning eyes.

"You don't have a gun, do you?" he asked slowly, partly out of genuine curiosity and also to see if they would have given a fire arm to a person as young as her.

"What? N-No, I don't have a gun" Carrie said alarmed, she looked away and absentmindedly rubbed her right temple as they approached the main control room.

Natasha walked ahead as they entered; flashing them a small smile as the three newcomers all looked around at the many agents at their various stations, as well as the large window overlooking the sky, Steve walked over near where Director Fury was, as Bruce had wandered over to one of the doors only to immediately turn away at the sight of the guards. Carrie was several feet behind Director Fury when Maria Hill's voice rang out across the room.

"All engines operating. S.H.I.E.L.D emergency protocol, 1 9 3.6 in effect."

We're at level, sir." She said addressing Director Fury, before her eyes hardened at the sight of Carrie.

"Good" Fury said as he looked out the main window.

"Let's vanish"

"Engage retro reflection panels" Hill's voice called out.

The entire Helicarrier's bottom exterior began to shimmer and the plates began to seemingly disappear from sight, making the Helicarrier disappear from view, Carrie looked at it amazed from one of the monitors which showed the exterior change.

"Reflection panels engaged" one agent said.

"Gentleman, and Miss White" Fury said turning around to greet them.

Carrie held back a small laugh as Steve took out a crumpled up ten dollar bill and handed it to Fury, who wordlessly accepted it, looking amused before putting it in his pocket, Steve walking ahead behind him to look at the interior.

"Doctor, thank you for coming" Fury said holding out his hand to Bruce earnestly.

"Thanks for asking nicely" Bruce replied after a moment, shaking Fury's hand.

"So, uh…how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear." Fury replied.

"Where are you with that?" Bruce asked as Fury motioned him towards Agent Coulson, who was overseeing several agents working on computers.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet, Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us." Coulson said, sending Carrie as Natasha squatted down near a screen which was searching for Agent Barton.

"That's still not gonna find them in time." She said.

"You have to narrow your field" Bruce said speaking up.

"How many spectrometers do you have access to?" He asked Fury.

"How many are there?"

"Call every lab you know, tell them to put there spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for Gamma rays" He said to Coulson, while taking off his coat.

"I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places" he said as Fury nodded.

"Do you have somewhere for me to work?" he asked.

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr Banner to his laboratory, please." Fury said to Natasha who nodded and walked past Bruce.

"You're going to love it Doc. We got all the toys" she said with a smile as she led the him out of the room, Carrie decided to follow them since she wasn't currently needed for anything, and even though she knew next to nothing about what Doctor Banner had been talking about, she didn't mind spending time with the man, and wanted to watch him work.

* * *

 

Carrie had been in Doctor Banner's lab for several hours now; despite not knowing what he was saying when he began to speak in technical terms or scientific language she eagerly listened.

Bruce however did apologise, seeing the young girl's confusion when he began to ramble on, knowing that she probably had no idea what he was saying, but was still politely listening.

Their time together was cut short, when Natasha came in, now wearing her field gear instead of her civilian clothing.

"We've found a match, Loki's in Stuttgart, Germany" Natasha said looking at Carrie.

"Director Fury wants you to accompany me and Captain Rogers on this one"

Carrie looked surprised at this, and Bruce looked worried and concerned as she said it.

"Wait a minute, hold on, your saying Fury wants you to take her to help you apprehend Loki, doesn't that sound a little extreme" he said taking off his glasses.

"Doctor Banner, I can assure you she'll be fine, she's capable of taking care of herself" Natasha retorted.

"Oh, yeah, then why not let her answer that?" he said turning to Carrie who wasn't making any attempt to hide her nervousness at the situation, she still was feeling frightened from what she had experienced when confronting Loki previously, especially his staff as she had seen its power directly, let alone what other abilities he might possess, but knowing that Natasha and Steve would be there, was reassuring.

"I….I'll go" she said suddenly, as Natasha nodded and exited the room, Bruce gave her a concerned look.

"Are you sure about this, I mean, you shouldn't go out there just because she's putting pressure on you" he said pointing in the direction Natasha left in.

"No, it's not that. I mean, yes I am afraid of facing Loki, I already met him once, and saw what he did to those other agents, but I'll have Natasha there, and Captain Rogers, so I should be ok, plus I do have my own abilities" she said as she lifted several pens off of a nearby desk, as if somehow showing her might in the minuscule act.

"Yes, but your power…..I read about it in your file, you'd have to get..." he began, only to awkwardly stop, Carrie knew what he was thinking, and knew it was a sensitive topic for both of them.

 _'To get angry'_ she thought.

"Hopefully it won't come to that" she said softly as she exited the room.

* * *

 

Carrie arrived on the tar mac several minutes later, and headed towards the Quinjet that Natasha was standing near, the older woman entering it as she saw Carrie approaching; however before she could reach it she heard a familiar voice call out to her.

"Carrie, wait!"

Turning around she saw Phil jogging towards her.

"Phil" she said as he slowed down and was at her side.

"You're going with them" he said, to which she nodded slightly.

"Ok" he replied as he looked at her for a moment.

"I'm sorry about your lack of a uniform" he said as Carrie looked down at her clothing, it was the same from earlier, except she now had a thicker jacket on then her cardigan, for the cold.

"You were going to get me a uniform?" She asked in surprise.

"No, I am getting you one; it's almost done, but not quite ready yet. Its custom made and I had some ideas about the design" he said giving her one of his small smiles.

"….Thanks Phil" she said after a moment, before she could say any more she found herself pulled into an embrace, Carrie wrapped her arms around him in return as the moment lasted for a few seconds before he leaned back.

"Be careful out there" he said seriously.

"I will" she said nodding, before reluctantly turning away and entering the Quinjet.

Natasha looked back at her from the co-pilot position, closing the hatch door as she entered. Carrie's eyes fell on Captain Rogers, who was now dressed in his new Captain America outfit, it had the basic design of the one she had seen in pictures, yet it was more stylised and form fitting, as well as having a modern touch.

"Next stop, Stuttgart Germany" Natasha said as they took off.


	5. Shakespeare in the park

The Quinjet had flown at top speed to reach their destination as quickly as possible.

They were now in Stuttgart and coming up to the gallery were Coulson had informed them that Loki was currently located at, Natasha could see a crowd of people up ahead, and Loki was there, addressing them as they all were forced to kneel.

"Ok Cap, we're going to drop you here" She said as Steve nodded.

"We'll follow overhead and cover you from above, try and subdue him without risking any civilian casualties" Natasha said as the Quinjet was lowered down closer to the ground.

"Will do" Steve said as he jumped down from the cargo bay exit, leaving Carrie standing in the jet and looking back at Natasha questioningly.

"What about me?" She said as Natasha got up from the co-pilot position and approached her.

"You'll be going in to backup Captain Rogers, but first we need to find something to cover your face" she said seriously.

"My face?" Carrie asked.

"Yes, you're still a high profile fugitive from the authorities, and S.H.I.E.L.D has to keep you in hiding from the public until such a time as your case can be dropped" Natasha said.

"Wait, what case?" Carrie said, still confused.

"Coulson didn't tell you? You're the basis for several supreme court trials currently being conducted, on top of being practically known worldwide, that's why we need to make sure you're not recognised down there" Natasha said as she moved away to a supply cache, as Carrie stood there with a wide eyed look.

She had already known that her face was spread across the world practically, but she hadn't given thought to the fact that she was still under threat from the authorities.

"But why can't S.H.I.E.L.D just have the cases dropped, they could prove my innocence, couldn't they?" she asked Natasha who glanced up at her.

"It's not that simple, there's a lot of formalities and legal technicalities, as well as the internal debate amongst the world security council, some of them are on your side, but others aren't, that's part of the reason as to why you're still on probation and in hiding" Natasha said as she stood up and presented Carrie with a pair of dark visor goggles that covered the eyes and the top of the nose as well as the forehead.

"I know they're not much but it's the least I can give you on such short notice, plus it should cover most of the top half of your face." Natasha said as she handed them to the young girl who looked at them for a moment before tentatively putting them on.

She headed down to the back of the cargo bay door and hopped down as the Quinjet had lowered closer to the ground, and landed next to Steve who gave her a reassuring smile.

"Ok, let's go" he said as they took off towards the gallery, Steve was running ahead due to his superior speed as Carrie followed as best she could.

But as they arrived at the area, Carrie saw several other Loki copies surrounding the crowd and an old man standing up among the kneeling people, as Loki seemed to be directing his attention towards him as they conversed.

"There are no men like me" Loki said grinning at the man.

"There are always men like you" the old man said defiantly.

Loki seemed amused at this.

"Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example" he said as he prepared to fire his staff towards the men, though Carrie saw Steve had leapt through the crowd and jump in front of the man, using his shield to knock the blast back towards Loki at the last second.

She made her way along the side of the crowd quickly, as the Loki duplicates disappeared after Steve knocked him back.

Carrie looked through the crowd as she slowly manoeuvred around the sides, to see Steve walking ahead as Loki recovered.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everyone else, we ended up disagreeing" Steve said as Loki got to his feet.

"The Soldier" Loki said haughtily.

"A man out of time" he continued grinning.

"I'm not the one who's out of time" Steve replied seriously as the Quinjet came down into view, the weapons locking onto Loki as Natasha's voice was heard over the PA.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down!" Natasha's voice sounded out across the area, before having to quickly veer to the left as Loki sent a blast towards them from his sceptre.

Carrie was about to attempt to knock Loki down using her powers, but Steve quickly threw his shield at the man which knocked him back several feet, Steve catching the shield as he ran towards him and punched Loki in the face, only for him to shake off the blow and swing his sceptre at Steve, who blocked with his shield.

However Loki continued attacking him, catching the Super Soldier off guard and sending him rolling back on his back onto the concrete after hitting him in the stomach.

Steve looked up to glare at Loki and threw his shield again, only for Loki to knock it out of the way with his sceptre as Steve launched himself at him again and attempt to hit the Asgardian, Loki retorted by swinging his staff, causing Steve to have to bend back to duck the attack, before hitting Loki in the ribs.

This gave him the opportunity to knock Steve back with his sceptre again, this time following his fallen body and placing the end of his weapon on Steve's head, trying to force him into a sign of submission.

"Kneel!" Loki said lowly.

"Not today!" Steve responded as he grabbed the end of Loki's sceptre and quickly sprung up delivering a roundhouse kick to his face.

Loki looked at the Super Soldier with an amused expression and was about to respond when he was suddenly hit with a heavy object, causing him to be flung across the concrete. Recovering he looked to see what had hit him and saw that it was a full trash bin, before he could comprehend what had happened, another object came flying towards him, he brought up his sceptre just in time to deflect the offending item, which was a bicycle.

"Who dares!" he exclaimed as he stood up, only to see Carrie standing across courtyard several feet to the left of Steve.

"Oh hahaha" he chuckled in amusement at the sight of Carrie standing there with her hands out in front of herself.

"The Downtrodden Girl" Loki said condescendingly as Carrie shifted slightly.

"What? Were all the other actually useful members busy, so they decided to send you along to accompany the Captain?" He mocked.

Carrie gulped nervously, trying to hide her nervous expression behind the visor.

Loki motioned his sceptre at her, but Carrie quickly switched her attention to the lamp post that was near him and focused on it.

 _'FLEX'_ she thought as her face screwed up in concertation as the lamp post groaned as the bottom began to bend before it gave way and fell, Loki's head whipped around and he jumped out of the way of it, only to come into contact with Steve who continued to try and fight him hand to hand.

Carrie moved closer to the two of them and tried to focus on removing Loki's sceptre from his hands, however he seemed to notice her attempts and grabbed Steve and threw him over in her direction, Carrie tried to move out of the way in time, but Steve came crashing into her, causing them both to stumble to the ground.

Carrie let out a groan of discomfort as the visor did little to protect her head, and the clothing she was wearing did next to nothing to absorb the impact of Steve, nor the concrete.

Steve rolled off of her, not wanting to hurt her any more than he had unintentionally done so far.

"Are you ok?" he asked quickly, to which she nodded as she tried to regain her footing and stand.

Before Carrie could react she heard the PA system of the Quinjet suddenly come to life and loud unidentifiable music was blaring through it, Steve looked back up at the Quinjet with a similar look of confusion, Carrie looked up just in time to see an object fly through the air at high speed and realised it was the armour worn by Mr Stark she had seen in the footage.

He kept flying towards them, pulling up slightly as he let out two blasts form his hands that landed directly on Loki's chest and knocked him off his feet with force before he dropped down and landed a few feet in front of her, the concrete cracking as he did.

Tony lifted up both his hands as the music died down; both arms brandished several different weapons as well as mounted shoulder weaponry.

"Make your move, Reindeer Games" he challenged as Loki looked winded as he brought himself up into a sitting position, Steve had by this time picked up his shield and made his way to Tony's left side, Carrie walked up slowly to his right.

Loki looked at the three of them contemplating, before he slowly brought his hands up in a show of surrender as his armour dematerialised from him in a glimmer of light.

"Good move" Tony remarked after his weapons powered down.

"Mr Stark" Steve greeted as he was trying to regain his breath.

"Captain"

Tony turned to Carrie and his helmet plate slid up.

"And hello to you too" he said with a small smile. "They finally let you out in the field huh?"

Carrie nodded softly.

"It's good to see you Mr Stark" she greeted sincerely.

He nodded genuinely before his eyes locked on to her visor.

"Ok, I just got to ask, what's with the snow goggles?"

* * *

 

Ten minutes later they were all aboard the Quinjet, Loki was strapped into one of the seats securely, his hands in his lap as he looked forward in silence.

"Saying anything?" Director Fury asked Natasha through the communication feed.

"Not a word" she replied.

"Just get him here, we're low on time" Fury said before cutting the connection.

Tony had taken his helmet off and was now standing near the front of the Quinjet with Steve on his left and Carrie behind him on his right side; they were all taking glances back at Loki. Steve turned so that his back was towards the Asgardian before addressing Tony.

"I don't like it" he said seriously.

"What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?" Tony replied.

"I don't remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop" Steve said looking back at Loki.

"Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow." Tony said as Steve turned back to look at him.

"What's your thing Pilates?" Tony questioned, only getting a confused look from Steve.

"What?"

"It's like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle." Tony responded, this got him nothing more than a serious look from Steve who ignored the jab.

"Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in" Steve said.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you." Tony responded knowingly, Carrie looked up in confusion at this statement.

The next thing they knew, a loud grumble of thunder was heard, and Lightning began to flash in the sky, causing Carrie to jump slightly and move closer to Tony subconsciously.

"Where is this coming from?" Natasha asked as she looked out to see lightning strike down near them as the Quinjet began to rock slightly.

Carrie looked over at Loki who was no longer sitting still, and was now looking up nervously at the lightning.

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?" Steve asked as Loki looked over at him.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows" he answered anxiously.

"What does that mean" Carrie asked quietly from Tony's side, but before anyone could answer the Quinjet suddenly jolted as an object landed on the roof. Everyone looked up in surprise and concern, Loki especially.

Tony quickly placed his helmet back on and Steve grabbed his shield, Carrie looked up at the roof as she could here movement.

Tony walked back down to the rear of the jet and pressed the cargo hatch button which opened the door, Steve looked at him as he put his own gear on.

"What are you doing?"

Carrie's eyes widened as a blonde man wearing similar armour to Loki's suddenly dropped down into the jet through the door, Loki looked at him with a fearful expression.

The man walked forward as Tony raised a hand to try and stop him, only for the man to bring up a large hammer and hit him in the chest, sending him flying back onto Steve, nearly hitting Carrie.

The man than grabbed Loki and pulled him from his seat, tearing the straps and grabbing him by the throat before making his way to the door and jumping out as he swung his hammer, still holding Loki.

"Ugh, now there's that guy" Tony remarked as he got back up and made his way to the rear of the jet.

"Another Asgardian?" Natasha asked from the front.

"Think the guys a friendly?" Steve asked having gotten back up himself.

"Doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract is lost" Tony said as he turned back to the exit.

"Stark, we need a plan of attack" Steve called out to him, Tony turned back.

"I have a plan, attack" He said before flying out of the Quinjet.

Carrie slowly moved down to the rear of the jet, not too close however as she looked down at the height of the jet before turning back to Steve who handed her a parachute, before beginning to strap his own on.

"If you want" he said.

"You can stay here with Agent Romanoff if you don't feel up to it" he said calmly, Carrie looked at the chute and back at Steve before she started to put it on as fast as she could.

"I'd sit this one out, you two." Natasha said to them.

"I don't see how I can" Steve replied as he began to fasten the straps.

"These guys come from legends, they're basically Gods" she called back to the two of them.

Carrie looked up from trying to put on her parachute at her words.

"There's only one God, Agent Romanoff" Carrie said seriously.

"And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that" Steve said in agreement.

But before Carrie could properly secure her parachute, a sudden wave of turbulence hit the Quinjet and she found herself falling back and unable to grasp anything was thrown back and rolled out of the ramp of the cargo bay door, and found herself falling through the air, with no chute.

A scream erupted from her lips as she fell.

Down on the ground, Thor had finally landed, bringing Loki crashing down into the ground hard, who released a groan at having been unceremoniously flung to the earth, before letting out a laugh.

"Where is the Tesseract?" Thor asked seriously.

"I missed you too" Loki shot back amused.

"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?!" Thor growled out in irritation, Loki was about to respond when a sound caught their attention, Thor glanced up in the direction the sound was coming from and saw a form falling from the sky, a higher pitched scream resonating from the person.

He looked down at Loki who suddenly had the same look on his face as he gazed up at the person.

Meanwhile Carrie was still falling, having seen Captain Rogers dive out of the jet after her, but the winds had picked up and sent him off course, despite his best efforts to catch the young girl, who was flailing around trying to slow her descent, finding herself unable to concentrate on anything as fear gripped her mind, not being used to being without solid ground beneath her, her body was in a state of terror as she screamed as her eyes were closed.

However a moment later she found her descent come to a halt, and the feeling of strong arms wrap around her and the warmth of another body pressed against hers.

She slowly opened her eyes to see the blond man from before; he had caught her and was now holding him his arms, his cape flowing in the air as they descended at a slower pace, coming to rest on a cliff he placed her down gently, Carrie could see Loki several feet away lying in the dirt but her attention was focused on her saviour.

"Young Maiden, are you injured?" he inquired, his voice had a deeper tone to it, and his blue eyes were awash with concern.

Carrie couldn't speak for a moment, as she recovered from her terrifying ordeal and her subsequent rescue, she found herself momentarily stunned, but after a few seconds she managed to shake her head in answer to his question.

"That is good, I am glad you are ok" he said placing a hand on her shoulder.

"If you will excuse me" he said a moment later, walking past Carrie to Loki his expression changed back to the previous serious tone, Loki however seemed unaffected.

"Oh, you should thank me. With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the All-Father have to muster to conjure you here?" Loki asked as he stood up.

"Your precious earth."

Thor dropped his hammer and approached Loki, grabbing him by the side of his head and hoisting him up angrily.

"I thought you dead!" Thor said, his tone softening as he gazed at Loki, Carrie watched on in confusion and interest at the scene.

"Did you mourn?" Loki asked.

"We all did. Our father-" Thor began only for Loki to cut him off.

"Your….. father" Loki said bringing up a hand to correct Thor.

Thor let go of Loki, who walked to the side of him, Carrie was still behind Thor at this point as Loki was walking away from them.

"He did tell you of my true parentage, did he not?" Loki asked.

"We were raised together. We played together, fought together" Thor replied strongly as Loki walked a few feet away.

"Do you remember none of that?" Thor argued causing Loki to turn back to face him.

"I remember a shadow." He replied

"Living in the shade of your greatness" Loki continued, getting more visibly upset as he spoke.

"I remember you tossing me into an abyss! I who was and should be King!" Loki exclaimed.

"So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights?" Thor shot back.

Carrie was listening in intently by now, and was trying to piece together what she could from their conversation, Loki's eyes flashed to hers quickly before turning back to Thor as he continued to speak.

"No, the Earth is under my protection, Loki"

Loki let out a laugh at Thor's statement.

"And you're doing a marvellous job with that." Loki said amused.

"The humans slaughter each other in droves, while you idly fret. I mean to rule them! And why should I not-" he began, only for Thor to cut him off.

"You think yourself above them?"

Loki pretended to contemplate this before answering.

"Well yes"

Carrie frowned slightly at this statement.

"Then you miss the truth of ruling, brother" Thor responded softly.

"A throne would suit you ill"

Loki snarled at this statement, and pushed past Thor, Carrie stumbled back as Loki came back in her direction. Loki shot her a look before walking to the side of the cliff.

"I've seen worlds you've never known about! I have grown in my exile 'Odinson' I have seen the true power of the Tesseract. And when I wield it-"

"Who showed you this power?" Thor demanded as he approached him, standing in front of Carrie as he addressed Loki.

"Who controls the would-be King!"

"I am a king!" Loki screamed back before Thor grabbed him roughly.

"Not here!" Thor exclaimed as he grabbed Loki by the arms.

"You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream!" Thor spat out angrily, Carrie looked on worried at what might happen, but saw Thor visible relax his hold on Loki and place his hand on his shoulder.

"You come home" he pleaded, his tone softening.

Loki seemed to take in Thor's words before a smile came to his face.

"I don't have it" He said sincerely, Thor growled out as he move back from Loki, before raising his hand and Carrie looked surprised as the hammer he wielded before suddenly flew up from the ground to his hand as he held it up threateningly.

"You need the cube to bring me home. But I've sent it off I know not where" Loki said truthfully.

"You don't know where the Tesseract is?" Carrie asked speaking up, Loki glanced back at her and Thor seemed to acknowledge her before turning back to Loki.

"You listen well brother." Thor began.

Carrie gasped however when he was suddenly ploughed into by Tony, who had flown into him at high speeds.

"I'm listening?"

He suddenly turned back towards Carrie, who was instantly on guard. But before he could try anything Tony instantly reappeared, flying up onto the ledge.

"Yeah, there's no way I'm leaving her here with you" He said to Loki before picking Carrie up abruptly and taking off down to where he had thrown Thor, Carrie was holding onto him for dear life as they sped down to the ground, he landed softly and let her down before turning back to Thor, who was only now getting up.

"Do not touch me again" Thor said seriously as Tony's face plate slid up.

"Then don't take my stuff" Tony replied.

"You have no idea what you are dealing with" Thor said in the same tone as before.

"Uh…Shakespeare in the park?" Tony said sending a look to Carrie.

"Doth mother know, you weareth her drapes?" he said mockingly as he gestured to Thor.

Looking back at Carrie he saw another blank expression.

"Oh come one! I'm sure even the old man in blue knows Shakespeare!"

"This is beyond you, metal man" Thor said, gaining Tony and Carrie's attention.

"Loki will face Asgardian justice" Thor proclaimed.

"He gives up the cube he's all yours. Until then, stay out of our way" Tony replied turning back to Carrie as he walked away from Thor, who didn't look happy at being ignored.

"Tourist" He said to her, shaking his head slightly.

Carrie looked at him with concern as she hoped this wouldn't escalate into a fight, as she gathered that Thor was more or less on the same side they were.

However upon looking back at Thor she saw him throw his hammer at Tony.

"Look out!" she screamed as Tony turned only to go crashing back right through a tree as the hammer hit him.

Tony got back up a few moments later and Thor began to spin his hammer in preparation for another attack.

"No, wai-" Carrie began as she was trying to stop them, only for Tony to blast Thor back into a tree and rocket toward him with a kick that sent him breaking through the trunk, Carrie looked on concerned only for Thor to stand up and call his hammer to him, and it to the sky.

Her eyes widened in amazement, as lightning came crashing down from the sky and channelling into the hammer and quickly pointed it towards Tony, sending a powerful torrent of lightning at him, which caused the armoured avenger to stumble back from the force as his suit was bombarded with it.

Carrie thought for a moment that the attack may have injured him, or worse. But was proven wrong as Tony thrust his hands forwards and sent and even more powerful blast than the ones she had seen before at Thor causing the man to fly back before catching himself, both of them squared each other off before flying into the air and crashing into one another.

Her eyes were trained on them as Tony used his thrusters to launch them into the distance beyond her vision, and she waited desperately for them to re-appear, which happened a few moments later with Thor now in control as he pushed Tony though yet another tree, which happened to be near Carrie, his hammer falling to the ground.

Carrie quickly jumped to the side as the tree came falling down, her breathing was heavy as she landed with a thud, she managed to roll onto her back and sit up slightly to see Thor and Tony now grappling.

Thor had grabbed Tony's arms, and using strength far beyond that of humans, began to crush his right forearm armour piece. Tony groaned before managing to fire a repulsor in Thor's face and head butt him, only for Thor to simply stare back before returning the action, his one causing Tony to go flying back and the face plate to dent.

 _'I've got to stop this, but how!'_ Carrie thought desperately as Tony flew back to Thor and threw him into the fallen tree stump, the Asgardian got up and dodged a punch from Tony and grabbed him before slamming his entire body down onto the ground.

Thor then reached out with his right hand to call his hammer to him, but after a few moments it didn't return to his hand, he turned around in the direction of the hammer and was shocked at what he found.

Carrie stood there, shaking slightly as she held the hammer out defensively in both hands.

Thor's eyes widened at the sight.

"…Stop fighting…please, just stop!" she cried out shakily as she held up the hammer, despite not knowing what to do with it, nor the significance of her act.

"You…..You can wield Mjolnir?" Thor asked in astonishment.

Before she could react, Tony had recovered from Thor's assault and flew out from under him, knocking the Asgardian off his feet and flying very close to Carrie, who dropped the hammer, startled, as Tony flew up and returned punching Thor in the head, who growled out, summoning Mjolnir back to his hands and preparing to attacking again, when suddenly Steve's shield flew down and bounced of Thor and Tony before returning to Steve, who was standing on a fallen log above them, Carrie looked relieved that he had finally arrived.

"That's enough!" he said strongly before dropping down to the ground.

"Now, I don't know what you plan on doing here." Steve said to Thor.

"I've come to put an end to Loki's schemes!" Thor said, his tone laced with annoyance.

"Then prove it" Steve replied.

"Put that hammer down"

Tony turned to Steve as he said this.

"Uh...yep! No! Bad call! He loves his hammer!" Tony said, only for Thor to hit him with the Hammer as soon as the words left his mouth, sending him tumbling back several feet from where Carrie was.

"You want me to put the Hammer down!" Thor exclaimed fiercely before leaping up into the air towards Steve, who in turn brought his shield up to block the blow.

The results from the two objects colliding caused a shockwave which blew everyone off their feet, and the tree's in the immediate area to be knocked back by the force.

Everyone slowly got up a few moments later, Carrie having landed back on Tony, who was now helping her up, as the young girl was still disoriented from being unprotected from the shockwave.

"Hey, you okay Care-Bear?" he asked softly as he helped her up, Carrie nodded, not noticing the name he had called her as her head felt like it was spinning.

The four of them moved to the centre of the area, their eyes all darting from one to another, except Carrie, who was holding onto Tony for support.

"Are we done here?" Steve asked, Thor glanced around at the area, before nodding. His eyes however drifted to Carrie who was holding onto Tony sleepily, and back to Mjolnir with confusion and awe.

"Ok, let's go get Loki, then we can head back to the Helicarrier" Steve said.


	6. That Man Was Playing Gallaga!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the confrontation with Loki, Carrie and the rest of the team regroup on the Hellicarrier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, something I wanted to bring up
> 
> I am torn between pairing Carrie with a character, and which character that would be, I had a few ideas listed down below:
> 
> \- Pietro
> 
> \- Darcy Lewis
> 
> \- Wanda
> 
> \- Skye (Daisy) 
> 
> Let me know what you think of those potential pairings, or if you have any ideas of your own. 
> 
> (With that being said, I am leaning towards not shipping her with Bucky, if any of you were thinking of that, I just don't see it happening) 
> 
> At the moment, Carrie isn't paired with anyone, and may not end up being shipped at all, it's just something to consider.

It was almost an hour after Carrie and the other's had left to return to the Helicarrier. Upon their arrival they had been greeted by a number of armed guards who were tasked with escorting Loki to a holding cell.

Tony had gone off from the others, saying that he had to remove his Armor and assess the damage it had taken after his bout with Thor; Phil had gone with him to fill him in on the recent events and bring him up to speed on the situation.

This left Carrie, Steve and Thor to be led back to the main control room by Natasha.

As they walked, Carrie kept feeling like she was being watched, she turned and saw Thor was staring at her inquisitively.

"Is…Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Odinson?" she asked, recalling his name that he had introduced to the others upon the Quinjet, he had shaken Steve and Tony's hands, yet when it came to Natasha and Carrie's he had taken their hands individually and lightly kissed the top of them, this caused Natasha to tilt her head in amusement, and Carrie to blush lightly, not used to the chivalrous action.

Thor let out a chuckle.

"You may call me Thor, Carrie White" he said with a kind smile, before continuing.

"And I apologize for staring, I meant you no disrespect. However I am puzzled about something you did during my battle with the Man of Iron" he said to her as they walked behind Steve and Natasha.

"Something I did?" she asked in confusion, she hadn't really done anything during the battle that she could think of.

Thor brought his right hand up, holding Mjolnir proudly.

"Your hammer?" she said raising an eyebrow.

"Mjolnir" Thor said gesturing to it.

"It was forged in the heart of a dying star, making it indestructible, and is an incredible weapon of great power that can be used to wield the elements, achieve flight, and project energy, among other abilities." He explained before continuing.

"The reason I was so surprised that you could lift it, is because no one else has proven themselves worthy enough to do so" he said, which only made the young girl more confused.

"Worthy?" she asked.

"Yes, you see my father, Odin, placed an enchantment on Mjolnir when he sent me to Earth last year. Only those who are deemed worthy may wield this this hammer" he said as he looked down at her proudly.

"You have proven yourself worthy of such an honor"

Carrie looked down at his words; she didn't feel worthy at all, given her previous actions and past. She had done nothing of any merit to gain this so called 'honor'.

"What is wrong, something troubles you?" Thor asked with concern.

"I-I haven't done anything in my life to earn such a privilege" she said quietly.

Thor placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look up at him; Thor was giving her a comforting look as well as one of certainty.

"Mjolnir does not make mistakes, nor can it be fooled. If you are able to lift it as I saw earlier, than you are indeed worthy, Carrie White"

Carrie didn't look completely convinced; however Thor asked her a question suddenly.

"What were you thinking, when you picked up Mjolnir earlier" he asked, as Carrie looked down for a moment before turning to him.

"I wanted you two to stop fighting, I didn't want either of you getting hurt and I just saw it lying there and….I don't know….It was like…" she tried to say.

"Mjolnir was calling to you" Thor said knowingly.

"Excuse me?" Carrie asked.

"There are many who would use Mjolnir for selfish reasons, and use it purely as a weapon to harm others and the innocent. You however were not even remotely thinking of yourself, you picked up Mjolnir with the sole intent of protecting others, and stopping conflict, and Mjolnir knows this, this is why you are worthy. Always remember this, for I can see you are a kind and gentle soul, one who will carry these ideals always" he said to her with conviction.

Carrie looked at him with surprise, before turning to look at the hammer in awe. Thor smiled and passed Mjolnir to her; Carrie looked at it hesitantly for a moment, before reaching for it and grasping the handle and lifted it out of Thor's offered hand.

Carrie stared at the hammer intently, it wasn't as heavy as she expected, and it seemed to hum slightly, she could feel its power as if it were alive.

"What do you think?" Thor asked with a smile.

"It's...It's quite well balanced" she said as she tested its weight in her hands.

"Yes, well if there's too much weight you lose power on the swing" he said casually as they were approaching the main control room.

Wordlessly Carrie handed Mjolnir back to Thor, who took it thankfully, before they entered the door Thor placed a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

"Always remember this, Mjolnir no equal as a weapon to destroy or as a tool to build. And I now know that if anything were to happen to me during this ordeal, that Mjolnir would be in safe hands" he said with a kind smile, Carrie returned it as Thor clasped her shoulder proudly before they entered the main room.

"They're bringing Loki in now" Natasha said as she motioned to the security screens which showed Loki being escorted through the halls by the armed guards, Carrie looked on as Loki seemed to smile widely as they took him past Doctor Banner's lab area.

Several minutes later Loki was placed in a round cell made of some form of glass, and the columns between the glass windows were pristine white, all that was in the cell was a single bench. Loki stood in the center and inspected his new lodging with calculating eyes.

Director Fury was standing outside the cell, and walked over to a control panel.

"In case it's unclear" He said in front of the panel as he lifted up a control covering.

"You try to escape; you so much as scratch that glass" he continued pressing several buttons, immediately the floor under Loki's cell opened up, the only thing holding it in place was the clamps, the wind instantly being heard as Loki went to the edge of the cell to inspect the drop-chute.

"Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap." Fury said pointing down the chute.

"You get how that works?" Fury asked as he pressed the control again, and the hole closed itself once again.

"Ant" He said motioning to Loki and the cell.

"Boot" he continued as he pointed back to the control panel.

Loki chuckled in amusement as the Director twisted his words back at him.

"It's an impressive cage" he said referring to the cell as he spread his arms out.

"Not built, I think, for me" he continued as he pointed to himself, moving back into the middle of the cell.

"Built for things a lot stronger than you" Fury said seriously.

"Oh, I've heard" Loki said as he turned to face the camera watching him.

"The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man."

Up in the main control room Natasha looked over at Bruce who merely looked back down, not saying anything at the jab from the prisoner, before Loki's voice continued over the security footage.

_"And the girl, an insane monster, hiding in human flesh"_

This got all adults present turning to look at Carrie, who was staring at the screen with widened eyes. Wordlessly Bruce leaned over and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, Carrie calmed slightly but her eyes were still looking at the screen as Loki seemed to be staring straight at her, his gaze making her fearful and his words making memories surface in the back of her mind that she quickly tried to bury.

Back in the cell Loki was staring back at Fury.

"How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" Loki asked Fury.

"How desperate am I?" Fury asked approaching the cell.

"You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill cause it's fun" He said unblinking.

"You have made me very desperate." Fury continued with a hard tone. "You might not be glad you did"

Loki merely levelled his gaze at the Director.

"Ooh. It burns you to come so close." Loki said narrowing his eyes.

"To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what?" Loki asked mockingly.

"A warm light for all mankind to share…and then to be reminded what real power is" he said condescendingly.

Fury looked at him for a moment before letting out a snort, and moving to exit the room.

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something."

Back up in the control room everyone was looking at the screens for several moments before Bruce spoke up.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce said sarcastically.

"Loki's gonna drag this out" Steve said before looking over at Thor, who was standing there in contemplation.

"So Thor, what's his play?" he asked.

"He has an army, called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known." He said as everyone looked at him in interest.

"He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract" he said as he turned to face them.

"An army?" Steve asked sceptically, turning to Natasha who stared back blankly.

"From outer space?"

Carrie didn't know what to believe at the moment, this was all such a shock to her, a few months back she wouldn't have believed that there could be life in outer space; it went against almost all of what she had been brought up with.

"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce said speaking up.

"Selvig?" Thor asked, raising his head at hearing the name of his friend.

"He's an Astrophysicist" Bruce said.

"He's a friend" Thor explained.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell" Natasha said to him.

"Along with one of ours"

Carrie looked over at Natasha, she knew the woman was Agent Barton's partner, and friend. She wondered how well she was holding up, given the fact that he was now technically on Loki's side, albeit forcefully.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him? He's not leading an army from here" he said turning to Bruce who shook his head.

"I don't think we should be focussing on Loki." He said.

"The guys brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him"

Thor seemed to take offense to this as he stepped forward.

"Have care how you speak!" he said defensively.

"Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother!"

'He still cares for him, despite all Loki's done' Carrie thought, remembering back to the conversation Thor had with Loki on the cliff.

"He killed eighty people in two days" Natasha said with a blank look on her face, there was a pause for a few moments after she said that.

"…..He's adopted" Thor said quietly.

After a moment of silence, Bruce spoke up once again.

"I think it's about the mechanics" he said before continuing.

"Iridium, what did they need the iridium for?" he asked before a voice called out from behind everyone.

"It's a stabilising agent"

Carrie turned to see Phil walk in besides Tony, who was the one who answered Bruce's question, he was now wearing a more casual looking black suit, and was seemingly still having a conversation with Phil.

"So, I'm just saying, pick a weekend. I'll fly you to Portland. Keep the love alive" he said as Phil seemed to smile before trying to get Tony's attention back on the team as he separated from him.

"Means the portal wont collapse on itself, like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D" he said as he walked over past Thor.

"No hard feelings Point Break, you got a mean swing" he said tapping Thor's arm as he walked by, the reference was lost on the Asgardian, as it was on Carrie and Steve as well.

"Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants" he said as he walked past Agent Hill and to the control modules that Fury usually manned, he stopped for a moment before turning to some of the other agents on deck.

"Uh, raise the mizzenmast, jib the topsails" he said as several agents stopped what they were doing and turned to him in confusion.

"That man is playing Gallaga!" he called out suddenly, pointing in the direction of a random agent.

"Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did" he said, Steve looked around to the others; Carrie had no idea what Gallaga was, Natasha rolled her eyes slightly at the billionaire's antics.

Tony then looked back at one of the screens, and covered one of his eyes.

"How does Fury even see these?" he asked turning around, Agent Hill was staring at him blankly with her arms crossed.

"He turns" she said dryly.

"Sounds exhausting" he replied as he interacted with the module.

"The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source." Tony said moving across the station.

"A high energy density, something to kick start the cube" he said as he discreetly placed a small device on the module, however Carrie noticed and frowned slightly, wondering what he had done.

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asked with her arms crossed.

"Last night" Tony said proudly.

"The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers" he said turning to the rest of them.

"Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Carrie didn't even attempt to read through any of that information, it was way beyond her, and she didn't understand any of the technical terms or language.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked, cutting of Tony.

Bruce seemed to be contemplating Tony's words when he spoke up.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Bruce said in thought.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect" Tony supplied as he walked across the room.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor in the planet" Bruce said as Tony made his way over to him.

"Finally" Tony said motioning towards Bruce.

"Someone who speaks English"

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked, Carrie only looked at the two men who were greeting each other.

"It's good to meet you, Dr Banner" Tony said as they shook hands.

"Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled" he said enthusiastically before continuing.

"Oh, and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster"

"….Thanks" Bruce said awkwardly.

"Dr Banner is only here to track the cube" Director Fury said entering he room.

"I was hoping you might join him"

"Let's start with that stick of his" Steve said.

"It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon"

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube" Fury said before continuing.

"And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know, into one of his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys" Thor said with confusion.

"I do not understand?"

"I do!" Steve said enthusiastically, pointing to Fury.

Carrie saw Tony roll his eyes at Steve's words as the Super Soldier looked proud to have understood Fury's meaning.

"I understood that reference" he said turning to the others.

"Shall we play, Doctor?" Tony said to Bruce.

"This way, sir" Bruce said as they began to exit the room.

"Oh, you better come with us too Snow White" Tony said looking back.

"Might need another pair of hands, plus I got a little something for you" the billionaire said as Carrie looked at him in surprise, before slowly getting up and walking over to Tony before they exited the room.

"Why did you want me to accompany you, Mr Stark?" she asked as they made their way to Bruce's lab.

"I wanted to catch up on some things, and I also got you something" he said reaching into one of the pockets in his jacket, before pulling out a small device with the Stark Industries logo on the back.

"Mr. Stark you didn't have to get me anything" she said shyly, not used to receiving gifts.

"Don't worry about it, I'm rich, which means I can pretty much buy whatever I want, whenever I want, and even so, this is from my company" he said as he passed the device to her.

"What is it?" she asked as she looked at, turning it around to see a screen on the other side.

"That, my Telekinetic friend, is the new Stark Phone. It's a hundred times better than anything Apple has in stores at the moment, and I set it up with unlimited calls and texting, as well as a free song database and store, so you can get anything you want on their for nothing" he explained as they walked along.

"Oh, Um…thank you, Mr Stark" she said shyly, she hadn't had a phone before, so this was a first.

"And don't worry, I'll show you how to use it" he said seeing her slightly confused look.

They finally reached Bruce's lab and went inside, before they did anything however Tony said he needed to go and grab some of his stuff that he had brought along with him, which he said could help find the cube.

So Carrie and Bruce were left alone in the lab for the time being, Bruce having moved back to his work and Carrie taking a seat in one corner of the room. She watched Dr Banner as he worked, and couldn't help but think back to the day she first met him.

_**(Flashback: One Month Ago; India)** _

_Carrie had decided to take a walk for a while, making sure to stay close to their allocated safe house, she took a backpack with her as well as some food._

_She had accompanied Phil and Agent Romanoff here as they were supposed to be watching a Doctor….Banner, apparently he was also known as the Hulk, Carrie had only seen footage of his other half so far, and the young girl had been shocked at the sight of him. The large green behemoth had been attacking a tank and several other armoured vehicles and taking them apart like they were made of cardboard and tin foil._

_Agent Romanoff had been rather tense about being requested to accompany Coulson on the mission but had agreed once she had learnt they weren't going to be making contact , Carrie had quickly discovered that the woman seemed to be afraid of the Hulk, though she didn't admit it out loud._

_But Carrie didn't exactly see it that way, The Hulk to her seemed like a misunderstood creature that was hated and feared, and thus reacted the same way to others lashing out at them as they attacked him._

_Making her way slowly through a market stall she took in the sights of the exotic location, there were mostly small stalls and tents with tables in them that were in between two sets of apartment buildings, most of them old and made of brick._

_Carrie walked around for a while, before spotting a vacant bench in one of the corners of the area, next to the wall of the apartment block, and moved over towards it and sat down._

_She took out her water bottle and took a sip, and put it back in her bag. When she looked back up, a man was now sitting on the left side of her on the bench, he was near the edge and there was a gap between them._

_The man looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, and was wearing a simple suit without a tie, he had dark_

_"Hi" Carrie said softly, the man turned to look at her, he blinked twice as he stared back at her for a moment before responding._

_"Uh, hi" he replied slowly._

_Carrie sat there for a moment, deciding whether or not she should try and talk to him. She didn't usually talk to people, except Phil or others who she had to talk to in S.H.I.E.L.D, but she wasn't usually one to start a conversation with a complete stranger, but there was something about him that just seemed ok to her._

_"It's…..quite warm today, don't you think?" she asked._

_The man looked up at her; he waited a few moments before answering._

_"It usually is, in this area, that is" he stumbled over his words slightly._

_"Are you…from around here?" she asked turning to him, she so far hadn't really met any of the locals, he was the first person who wasn't a S.H.I.E.L.D Agent she had talked to since arriving in India._

_"No, I only recently arrived" he said looking away for a moment before turning to the girl._

_"You don't seem like a local, what exactly are you doing here, if you don't mind me asking?" he said._

_Carrie instantly thought back to her cover story that Phil had told her to use if anyone had asked her what she was doing in India, she didn't like lying, but he had insisted it was necessary for her cover._

_"My Mom and Dad are here doing Aid work, they're missionaries" she said as the man seemed surprised to hear that._

_"And they brought you along?" he asked in interest._

_"I didn't really have anything better to do, plus I'm home-schooled, so I don't have to worry about missing classes" she said to him as he nodded._

_"Well I hope you're enjoying your stay so far" he said as Carrie smiled and nodded her head._

_After a moment she looked back at him before asking a question of her own._

_"Are you here on a vacation?" she asked, since he had said he only recently arrived in the area._

_"Oh, no…I guess you could say I'm doing similar to what your parents are doing" he said as she looked at him in interest_

_"Are you a Missionary as well?" Carrie asked, the man shook his head with a small laugh._

_"No, but I am helping out sick people" he answered, Carrie nodded slightly._

_"I think it's good that people help others" she said._

_"Doing the lords work is a good thing" she continued, the man seemed to stare at her for a moment._

_"Well if you believe that" he said evenly._

_"You don't believe in God?" she asked in confusion, she knew that some people didn't believe in God, and she tried not to force her beliefs on others, yet she still didn't like people making fun of her because of her religion._

_"No it's not that I don't believe. It's just that….let's just say God hasn't been on my side very much in the past, I don't really think he's my biggest fan either ." the man said with a small smile._

_Carrie placed a hand on top of one on the man's right hand, which rested on the bench; he looked up at her only to see her smiling back at him._

_"Just because you might have given up on him, doesn't mean God has given up on you" she said gently, with a smile._

_The man seemed to look at her for a moment before smiling softly and nodding._

_They sat there for a while, making small talk and civil conversation, when Carrie heard the man's stomach growl slightly; he looked embarrassed at the action._

_Without thinking she reached into her backpack and brought out a sandwich she had brought with her and offered it to the man._

_"No, I couldn't take that from you" he said shaking his head, Carrie saw that he looked slightly worse for wear, she surmised that he might not be in the most financial stable position, and was probably not charging people very much, if at all, for his services._

_"Really, it's ok. You need it more than me" she said, placing it in his lap. It was true, the S.H.I.E.L.D safe house was well stocked with food and supplies, and she didn't need to worry about food, while he might not see any for who knows how long._

_He looked at the offering for a moment, still unsure whether to take it, but she smiled at him and nodded, and he finally nodded in acceptance._

_"Thank you, really, your very kind" he said gratefully as he took a bite, he tried not to rush with eating it, not wanting to appear ravenously hungry in front of her._

_After he finished eating, they sat in silence for a few minutes, simply watching the market place and listening to the people speaking in the foreign language._

_Carrie was about to ask him a question when she felt the ground start to move beneath her feet, the whole market place began to shake and shift and the things fell from tables and some broke against the ground._

_"What's going on?!" she asked hurriedly._

_"An earthquake!" the man replied with concern lacing his tone._

_Carrie gasped as the bench leg on her side collapsed, the man got up quickly and helped her up, however the building behind them began to shake as the earthquake worsened, its old and dilapidated construction giving way slightly as single bricks and larger chunks of mortar began to give way, one of them hitting the man on the back._

_Instantly he dropped to the ground and let out a cry of pain from the strike, Carrie looked over at him in worry._

_He seemed to be shaking slightly, and not from the earthquake, he began to grunt and gasp._

_"A-Are you okay" she asked nervously, he rolled over slightly and looked at her with his jaw clenched and Carrie gasped as she saw his eyes flash green._

_He let out a scream as his body began to grow, his clothes became taught and ripped in several places as his muscles bulged and grew._

_'He's Dr Banner…..The Hulk' she thought as she took a step back as he continued to grow and his clothes tore of his body revealing green skin. Some people in the market place took notice of the sight and screams were heard as people ran from the area as the earthquake and the appearance of the Hulk combined to a truly frightening experience._

_Carrie looked back as they ran, and turned back around to see The Hulk was now getting up, he was grunting and growling, he stood up fully and let out a roar._

_Carrie took a few nervous steps back, it was true that she thought he was misunderstood, but the site before her in person did give her insight into why people were afraid of him, he was a truly intimidating sight to behold._

_The Hulk turned around and saw her taking several steps back, and began to move towards her, Carrie quickened her pace but tripped on one of the fallen bricks and grunted as she fell back and landed on the hard ground, a site caught her attention as a large chunk of debris broke off from one of the buildings, a piece of brick wall and concrete fell down and was heading right for her, Carrie instinctively through her hands up to try and stop it but the wall looked as if it would hit her before she could stop it, she closed her eyes at the last second, silently praying as her eyes clenched shut._

_Yet she didn't feel it._

_She slowly opened one eye, and quickly opened both of them to see what had happened._

_The Hulk was standing above her, and holding the large chunk of wall above his head like it was nothing, he tossed it aside without a problem, and Carrie looked up at him as he turned and stared down at her, his expression changing from one of anger to a more neutral look._

_Slowly standing up Carrie moved back a few steps and stood still, staring up at the large creature-no the large man before her, his expression seemed to softened as he looked at her, and Carrie saw one of his hands slowly move over to her, she didn't move, but flinched slightly before calming as he brought one of his fingers to her face, tracing it along her jaw softly despite his hand being able to dwarf her head._

_His eyes seemed to take on a perplexed look as she looked back into his gaze, it was as if The Hulk was unused to such a thing, a person who would not run from him or react with hostility, though Carrie realised that he was, and she thought that it could be possibly her interaction with him before his change that may have elicited this response._

_"Thank you" Carrie said softly._

_Before she could say another word a loud bang, both Carrie and The Hulk looked up to see several police officers pointing guns at their direction._

_"No wait!" She cried out as they opened fire, The Hulk turned to see her protesting their actions._

_"Stop it, please!" She cried._

_The officers either didn't hear or didn't care as they continued to fire, Carrie let out a scream slightly as a bullet whizzed past her._

_The Hulk's expression meanwhile turned to one of anger; the puny human's firing at him and the nice girl._

_Placing a hand on Carrie he moved in front of her as the bullets harmlessly bounced off his skin, Carrie looked up to see Hulk wrap an arm around her and felt air rush around them as he leapt off the ground. The Hulk held her to his chest as he took off, bounding off the nearby rooftop and off into the distance, Carrie meanwhile could only look on in shock and held onto the Hulk tightly in fear of falling from the height as he leapt through the air, her stomach kept doing flips as he landed only to jump again._

_They quickly made their way to the edge of the city, to a rocky area that was seemingly uninhabited._

_The Hulk stopped and moved them into a small area and let her down under a large rock that rose off the ground and made a sort of semi-cave among the hills, Carrie could see the city was about a twenty minute walk from where they were._

_She turned back to The Hulk to see him sitting beside her, his large frame dwarfing her own. Carrie knew that Phil would have found out about Dr Banner's transformation by now and was no doubt on his way to their location, due to him insisting she have a tracker on her._

_She decided to wait, and sit next to the Hulk, who was resting back against the rocks, and after a few minutes of peaceful silence. She found herself sitting next to the unconscious form of Dr Banner, who was barely clothed, except for the ragged form of his pants._

_She heard a noise in the distance and moved to see two black Humvee's coming towards their direction._

_A minute later they were at the site and Carrie could see Phil and Agent Romanoff get out of the first one and head towards her, seeing the unconscious Dr Banner next to her, Phil jogged up towards her while Natasha was running._

_"What happened?! Are you okay!" The older woman asked as she ran up to the younger girl, Carrie nodded but was pulled back away from Dr Banner, Natasha moved Carrie behind her and backed away from the unconscious man, her hand resting on her holstered pistol and looking for any sign to pull it out._

_Phil came up to them and quickly embraced her before leaning back._

_"I think you can release her Natasha, I don't think we're going to have any trouble from Dr Banner at this moment"_

_Natasha didn't seem to want to let her go, but Carrie backed out of her grip and turned to Phil._

_"It wasn't his fault, the earthquake caused the building near us to start collapsing, some bricks hit him and he turned into The Hulk. But he didn't hurt me, he saved me from the falling debris" she said as Phil looked over at Bruce before turning to her an nodding slightly, Natasha had turned back and was signalling the others in the Humvee's to be on alert._

_Carrie moved over to where Bruce was lying, and quickly took of her coat she was wearing, and draped it over the unconscious scientist. She stared at him for a moment, before reaching to her neck, and slowly taking off her cross necklace. She leaned down and gently put it in breast pocket of the jacket._

_Before she could do anything else she was grabbed in Natasha's tight grip and pulled away, Agent Romanoff seemingly still shaken by the event led her back to the Hummer quickly as Phil merely turned and surveyed the scientist for a moment before smiling and heading back to the car himself._

_**(Flashback End)** _

Carrie looked over at Bruce as he was going over some data on one of the screens, she spied the necklace she had placed in the jacket, it was hanging around his neck under the shirt, and could only be scene barely as he shifted to check the levels on another screen, she had gotten a new necklace shortly after, she touched it gently as it hung from her neck.

"So" Bruce suddenly said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"What do you think of our new guests?" he asked.

"Guests?" she asked.

"Our visitors from Asgard" he said referring to Thor and Loki.

"Thor seems nice, really nice. The exact opposite of his brother, he seems to care for Loki, but Loki doesn't seem to care for Thor or anyone for that matter" she said looking down slightly.

"And" she began slowly; Bruce looked over at her from his work.

"I don't know what to think, everything I've been taught, everything I believe says that they shouldn't exist, that they're nothing but blasphemous idols and false gods made up by pagans from long ago…" she said slowly, Bruce frowned slightly at her tone.

"Don't worry; Thor and Loki aren't technically Gods. They're just advanced beings from another realm, though it isn't hard to see how a primitive people like the Vikings could believe they were Gods, given their advanced strength, there powers, longevity, and there technology. It must have been the only thing that made sense to them" Bruce said as he took of his reading glasses.

Carrie nodded slightly at his answer.

Just that moment, Tony returned, carrying with him several boxes and a trolley which held several types of technological equipment.

"What are they?" she asked eying the different pieces.

"Just a few things I thought would help with tracking the cube" he said as he began to unload it all.

A few minutes later, Tony was going over some data while Bruce was going over Loki's sceptre with a hand held scanner as he looked at the readouts.

Carrie was finishing plugging in the cables that Tony had instructed her to plug in and told where to put them.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process." Bruce said looking at the screen as he held the scanner over the sceptre.

Tony was using one of the Stark Industries monitors he brought with him and responded.

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." He said inputting the necessary commands.

Bruce let out a small laugh.

"All I packed was a toothbrush" he said to the billionaire.

Tony laughed as he crossed the room.

"You know you should come by Stark Towers some time. The top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, its candy land" he said Bruce.

"You too, there Care Bear, I'm still organising a movie night, though I promised Coulson no scary movies, it was the only way he'd agree, though I personally don't see anything wrong with watching scary movies, they teach you important life lessons. Like 'don't continue to stay in a house, when there's obviously something supernatural there' and 'If you're stuck out in the middle of Texas, don't go into the huge creepy house, cause there might be cannibals living there'" he said as Carrie was now looking at him with wide eyes.

"W-What?!" she asked.

"Hmmm, maybe that's why he didn't want you watching them? No matter, there are plenty of movies to watch that are fun for everyone, just wait till you watch some Disney" he said with a smile.

Carrie looked confused once again but nodded politely.

Bruce looked between them with a small smile before turning to Tony.

"Thanks for the offer, really. But the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke…..Harlem" Bruce said looking down at one of the screens.

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." Tony said as he slowly walked around behind Bruce, before pressing a small electrical prod into his side, causing the scientist to let out a surprised yelp.

Neither of them noticed Steve entering the room, except Carrie who saw him looking at Tony with a frown.

"Nothing?" Tony said as he stared at Bruce inquisitively.

"Hey! Are you nuts?" Steve asked as he approached them, frowning at Tony.

"Jury's out" Tony quipped, Bruce smiled slightly as he tried to focus on his work.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" Tony asked.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked incredulously.

"Funny things are" Tony replied.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." Steve said seriously.

"No offense, Doctor" he said quickly to Bruce.

"No, it...it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce said looking over at the prod.

Carrie looked between the three of them, she was surprised that Tony had done, but Bruce didn't seem to take much offense, she did worry though if The Hulk did come out on-board, she was sure that the Agents would only react in a way that made him angrier, and by doing so he would lash out at them.

"You're tiptoeing big man." Tony said pointing to Bruce.

"You need to strut"

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr Stark" Steve said annoyed at the man's attitude.

"You think I'm not?" Tony replied, picking up a small bag of dried blueberries.

"Why did Fury call us in, why now?" he asked the people present.

"Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation, unless I have all the variables"

Steve looked at him in confusion.

"You think Fury's hiding something?"

Carrie looked on in interest, she didn't know what Mr Stark was getting at, but she listened in as they conversed.

"He's a spy" Tony said in response to Steve's question.

"Captain, he's the Spy. His secrets have secrets" Tony said as he popped a dried blueberry into his mouth.

"It's bugging him to" he said pointing to Bruce as he chewed.

"Isn't it?"

"Uh, I just wanna finish my work here and..." Bruce began awkwardly, trying to avoid being pulled into the conversation.

"Doctor?" Steve asked.

Bruce looked at them for a moment before taking of his glasses.

"'A warm light for all mankind'. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube" Bruce began.

"I heard it" Steve said.

"Well, I think that was meant for you" Bruce said turning to Tony, who offered him a dried blueberry, Bruce took a small handful as he continued.

"Even if Barton hadn't told Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news"

"The Stark Tower?" Steve asked.

"That big ugly-" He began only for Tony to shoot him a look.

"….Building in New York"

"It's powered by an Arc Reactor, self-sustaining energy source" he explained before turning to Tony.

"That building will run itself for what, a year?" he asked.

"That's just the prototype" Tony replied.

"I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now, that's what he's getting at" He said turning to Steve.

"So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean what are they doing in energy business in the first place?" he asked.

Carrie didn't say anything, but she was thinking on Dr Banner's words. She hadn't thought about the Tesseract project much before, seeing as it didn't really concern her, but Director Fury said that they were planning to use it to give the world unlimited renewable energy, which seemed like a good cause. But was it possible they were hiding something?

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony said moving over to the left side of Bruce and pulling out a small hand held device.

"I'm sorry, did you say-" Steve began only for Tony to interrupt.

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge" he explained to Steve.

'So that's what that little thing was' Carrie thought as she watched Steve frown at Tony.

"In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D has ever tried to hide" he continued before holding the bag of dried blueberries to Steve.

"Blueberry?"

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve asked.

"An intelligence agency that fears intelligence? Historically not awesome" Tony said as Steve got frustrated.

"I think Loki is trying to wind us up" he said turning back to Tony.

"This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he will succeed." He said looking at both men.

"We have orders" he continued.

"We should follow them" he said to Tony.

"Following's not really my style" he said shovelling several blueberries into his mouth.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve replied.

Tony's face turned to one of concentration.

"Of the people in this room, who is A) wearing a bright spangly outfit, and B) not of use?" he said referring to Steve.

"Steve" Bruce said gaining his attention.

"Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" he asked the Super Soldier.

Steve didn't answer as he looked between them before leaving.

"Just find the cube" he said as he walked past Carrie without a word.

After he had left, Carrie walked back over to Bruce and Tony.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" he asked them as he offered Carrie a blueberry, thanked him politely as she took two.

"Wondering if they shouldn't left him on ice" he said as Bruce walked across the room to adjust some of the levels on a monitor.

"The guys not wrong about Loki, he does have the jump on us." Bruce said as he looked at the monitor.

"What he's got is an acme dynamite kit. It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does" Tony said as he crossed the room to the Stark Industries monitor he had been using previously.

"And I'll read all about it" Bruce said, Carrie looked at him after he said this, but said nothing as Tony responded.

"Uh-Huh. Or, you'll be suiting up like the rest of us" he said as he input some data into the monitor, only for Bruce to let out a small laugh.

"Ah, see. I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed, like a nerve, it's a nightmare" Bruce said bitterly.

Carrie frowned at Bruce's words, she hadn't heard him talk like that previously, and Tony looked over at Bruce as he said this.

"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart." Tony said, turning to face Bruce.

Carrie looked surprised at Tony's words.

"You do?" she asked, he nodded.

"This stops it" he said to both of them, tapping the Arc Reactor under his shirt.

"This little circle of light" he said moving over towards Bruce.

"It's a part of me now, not just armour" standing behind Bruce's screen.

" It's a …terrible privilege"

Bruce looked at the other man before responding.

"But you can control it" he said pointing at Tony.

"Because I learned how" he replied.

"It's different" Bruce said shaking his head.

Tony reached out and moved his hand across the screen, downsizing the data being displayed.

"Hey, I've read all about your accident." He said seriously.

"That much Gamma exposure should have killed you." He said as Carrie moved over closer and stood next to Tony's module.

Bruce paused for a moment before responding.

"So you're saying that The Hulk...The Other Guy, saved my life?" he asked before continuing.

"That's nice, that's a nice sentiment." He said to Tony. "Saved it for what?"

"I guess we'll find out" Tony said after a moment, and moved away from the screen.

"You may not enjoy that" Bruce remarked as Tony moved over near Carrie.

"And you just might" Tony said.

Carrie looked between them for a moment, unsure what do next, when Tony suddenly spoke up.

"And you" he said pointing to her as he looked at the screen for a moment before turning to face her.

"Your powers too" he said as Carrie looked confused, as did Bruce who looked over from what he was doing.

"You said you had to get angry, to use them more efficiently, right?" he asked her.

Carrie nodded slightly, looking down.

"Well, have you tried getting angry yet?"

Carrie shook her head after a moment.

"What about earlier, with Loki, you could've gotten mad, and who knows, you could've wiped the floor with him, would be saved us some time, and as a plus you would've showed up the old sourpuss with the shield." He said as he input another piece of data.

"I-I could've hurt Captain Rogers though, I could've even hurt Agent Romanoff in the Quinjet, it's just….too dangerous for me to lose control" she said as she wrapped her hands around her stomach, Bruce was giving her a sympathetic look.

"Look, all I'm saying is, if your practice using your powers when you get in that state, you'll be able to control them better when you need too" he said patting her on the shoulder, she gave him a nod before moving over to one of the seats.

Tony perked up and followed her.

"And hey, have you tried reading anyone's mind yet?" he asked with interest, Carrie shook her head slightly.

"See, there's another thing you need to practice" he said moving over to where she sat.

Bruce looked on in interest from where he stood.

"Go ahead, try and read my mind, try and look at a memory or something" he said to her, Carrie looked at him with concern.

"Mr Stark …I don't think.."

"Oh come on, it'll be a good little test, plus when people ask, you can say you've been in the mind of the famous Tony Stark" he said with a grin, Carrie smiled slightly before nervously raising her hands to the side of his head.

Tony sat still as she closed her eyes and focused, at first there was nothing, but as she concentrated, she began to hear noises; her eyes squeezed shut as she focused harder.

_The noises began to sound more like voices, her face took on a look of confusion, the voiced didn't sound normal, and she couldn't understand what they were saying._

_Focusing more she began to see blurry images. And the voices became clearer, she could hear yelling and harsh sounding words being directed at Tony, the images became clearer. The surroundings were dark and dimly lit, she could see a cave of some kind, and many people standing around with weapons, her face scrunched up in confusion._

"What is it?" Tony asked, noticing her confusion.

However Carrie didn't hear him, as she was too ingrained in the scenes playing out before her.

_She saw a man, he was older than Tony and wore a well-worn suit and glasses, and he was sitting near a fire in the cave._

"Hey, Carrie?" Tony asked again.

_However the scene changed again, and now she could see they were outside, and they were in some kind of camp, there were boxes of weaponry with the Stark Industries logo on them, and many of the people were armed._

_The scene quickly shifted and she could see Tony be shoved under water, she could feel her own breathe becoming short as she thrashed around like he did, but seemed to be held under like he was._

"Hey kid, are you ok!" Tony said placing his arms on her shoulders now and shaking her slightly as her eyes were in a daze as she shook, Bruce also moved over to her in concern.

_They were shouting out as they hit him as well as continuing to periodically shove his head under water._

_Then the scene shifted again and she saw the man from earlier lying on the ground, his face deathly pale, all the images began to blend together and she could hear the men shouting again in the foreign language, the shouting seemed to be getting louder and louder as her vision blurred._

Bruce was just about to run out and get help when suddenly Carrie let out a scream and fell back in her chair, her breathing was erratic and her eyes were wide with fear.

"Carrie!" Tony exclaimed as he held her shoulders as she was shaking and her eyes were darting around the room, as if making sure of where she was.

"What happened?" he asked her as Bruce came over and inspected her.

"What did you see?" Tony asked her, as she looked at him, her eyes began to moisten as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Y-You were i-in a cave..." She began.

Tony's eyes widened at her words, he hadn't thought she would see those memories, when he told her to try and view one.

"A-And there was shouting, and s-screaming. And they shoved your under water, and I-I could feel it" she said getting more emotional as tears were falling.

"Hey, It's ok, You're ok now" he said as she leaned forward suddenly and wrapped her arms around him as she cried, Tony wasn't sure if she was asking for comfort or if she was also trying to comfort him after seeing the memories, but it didn't matter since she was obviously upset.

"Shhh, its ok, sweetheart" he said gently as he returned the hug, rubbing her back as she nestled her head against him.

"It's ok" he said as he held her as her small form shook as she cried.

* * *

 

An hour later, and Carrie was up on the bridge, she was still dealing with the aftermath of viewing Tony's memories, but was trying not to let it show.

She remembered something Professor Xavier said she had spoken to him before, that an inexperienced Telepath, if they attempted to view a memory from another person, could become to embroiled in the memory and it could cause them to feel what was transpiring to the person, as if they were feeling it themselves. That is what had happened to her earlier, she had felt like those things were happening to her physically.

She tried to shake it off as she saw Thor standing alone, leaning against a wall in thought, as soon as he saw her, his face lit up with a smile.

"It is good to see you, Carrie White. How goes Man of Iron's search for the Tesseract with Doctor Banner?" he asked as she stood next to him.

"It's going well" She replied.

"They're both very smart, I'm sure they'll find it soon" she said as he nodded.

"That is good to hear, the sooner they find it, the sooner we may put an end to Loki's plans, and ensure the safety of the Earth" he said with a nod.

Carrie quietly nodded in return as she leaned back against the wall slightly.

"Is there something troubling you?" he asked in concern.

"Oh no, I'm fine" she said, not wanting to bother him with her own problems.

She did however think back to something he had said to her earlier.

"May I ask you something?"

Thor turned to her and nodded.

"Of course"

Carrie paused for a moment before continuing.

"Earlier, when you were talking to me about your hammer, you said that you're father sent you to Earth? I was just wondering why he sent you here." She asked innocently.

Thor looked down slightly when she asked that.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I said something wrong, I shouldn't have-" she began only for him to wave off her apology with a smile.

"No, no, it's quite alright, and a valid question to ask" he said as he looked up slightly before turning to her.

"Not too long ago, I was living back on Asgard with Loki. We were both princes of Asgard, however our father had chosen me to succeed him" he said as Carrie nodded as she listened.

"However, I was not as I am now. Back then I was ….Selfish, arrogant, greedy, spoiled and belligerent" he said with distaste, he seemed ashamed of his past self, Carrie looked surprised to hear this, as she couldn't picture the man before her being the way he described.

"On the day of my coronation, the ceremony was interrupted by a group of Jotun's, or Frost Giants, from the world of Jotunheim" he explained.

"They had broken into our weapons vault and sought out a relic known as the casket of eternal winters, which my father, Odin, had taken from them during the previous war with their people. And despite them failing due to the work of The Destroyer, a guardian of immense power, I was enraged at their actions, as I felt it had not only spoiled my day of victory, but was an insult to Asgard itself. My father however didn't see it the same way as I did, as I thought we should have gone to war with them over the action." He said as he looked down and sighed slightly before continuing.

"Soon after I led a group of my friends, known as the warriors three, as well as Lady Sif, an extraordinary warrior maiden, and Loki to Jotunheim, determined to seek answers to how they had entered our realm, which would be usually be impossible, without using the Bifrost"

"Bifrost? You mentioned that before" Carrie said as she recalled his conversation with Loki.

"Yes, the Bifrost is a magical bridge, capable of transporting people between realms instantly" he replied before continuing.

"I spoke with Laufey, king of the Frost Giants, and demanded he tell me. However due to my actions it quickly broke out into a battle, my friends were injured and almost killed as I arrogantly fought, not caring for their safety until they retreated, by the time I caught up with them we were surrounded by Frost Giants, and suddenly my father appeared from the Bifrost, I assumed he had come to fight with us, but I was wrong. He conversed with Laufey, who said due to my actions, the Jotuns were proclaiming a new war with Asgard" Thor said as Carrie was becoming enthralled with Thor's tale.

"My father managed to get us home, and sent the others away to heal, while Loki and I remained behind. Father was furious, he was disappointed with me and scolded me over my actions, and I responded by angrily calling him a fool" Thor said sadly, his head lowered shamefully.

"I didn't mean it, but at the time I was so angry and it just slipped out, I can still remember how he looked at me afterwards, he had responded that he was a fool, for thinking I had been ready to take the thrown, he then angrily began to denounce me, saying I was unworthy of Asgard, unworthy of my title as prince, and of the loved ones that I had betrayed by my actions" Thor said, his voice thick with emotion.

"He then stripped me off my powers, and banished me through the Bifrost, to Earth. And afterwards put a powerful enchantment on Mjolnir, saying that 'Who so ever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor' before throwing it through the Bifrost to Earth as well." He said as Carrie nodded slowly, she was still trying to come to terms with how Thor was portraying himself in the story.

"As soon as I arrived on Earth I met Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, and Erik Selvig" He explained, as Carrie nodded in realisation.

"After some trouble, including me escaping from a healing facility, I was taken in by them. Shortly afterwards I discovered Mjolnir had been found not far from the town we were staying in, and I made my way there, with help from Jane. But by the time we arrived, the area had been closed off by the people from S.H.I.E.L.D, they were under the command of your friend, the Son of Coul, and they were unsure of what they had found. I had Jane wait outside, while I fought my way through the compound, and found Mjolnir in its centre. However when I attempted to lift it from the ground, I found that I was unable to"

Carrie was impressed that Thor managed to do so much while still being powerless and was amused that he called Phil 'Son of Coul', and looked at him as a sad expression crossed his face.

"I didn't understand why it did not work at first, but then I saw the symbol of the enchantment on the side appear, and realised the truth, it wasn't the hammer that was the problem, it was me, I was the one who was not worthy of it, or my power." He continued before pausing.

"Soon after, Loki arrived, and lied to me, telling me that father was dead, and that I was not permitted to return home. I was devastated, but soon after Erik Selvig arrived and was able to free me from their confines, and I returned back with him, but not before we spent the night celebrating, we drank and were merry, though I must say Erik was not able to match me in our revelry" he said smiling, Carrie nodded, despite not understanding that Erik had gotten completely drunk.

"The following day, as we recovered from the nights events, my friends arrived from Asgard, and told me the truth, that Loki was now on the throne, and that my father was alive, but merely in the Odinsleep, a state in which he rests to recover his powers. Loki had also sent The Destroyer to Earth in an attempt to kill me, once he learned of my friends warning me. They fought valiantly against it, but The Destroyer proved too much for them, I had been assisting with getting people to safety when I realised what I had to do to stop the bloodshed, I approached it alone, and apologised to Loki, as he was the one controlling its actions. I pleaded with him to not continue threatening the innocent, and if he wanted to take a life, then he should take mine." He said, Carrie gasped slightly at his words.

"The Destroyer attacked me, and I was mortally wounded, I remember spending my last moments with Jane, who I had grown to love over our time together. However by sacrificing myself, I had proven my worth, and Mjolnir suddenly flew to our location, and I was brought back by it restoring my power, afterwards I managed to defeat it easily and return to Asgard with my friends and deal with Loki, I said my goodbye's to my new friends, and promised Jane that I would return to her" Thor said tenderly.

"However when I returned I found Loki had concocted a plot, to allow Frost Giants into Asgard to seemingly kill our father, and then kill them himself, making himself out to be the hero, after I confronted him he became enraged and attempted to use the Bifrost to destroy Jotunheim completely" he said angrily.

Carrie looked shocked, not only at the fact that Loki would destroy an entire world, but that the Bifrost was capable of such a feat.

"Loki and I fought, unbeknownst to me at the time, one of the reasons for him seeking to destroy Jotunheim, was that he was secretly a Frost Giant, Laufey's son that had been abandoned as a baby, and taken in by my father, however he did not tell me this as we fought. I managed to subdue him, but the Bifrost had become too unstable, and I could not shut it down, so I did the only thing I could do to save Jotunheim, I destroyed the Bridge using Mjolnir" he said.

"But, how would you get back to Earth, and Jane?" she asked.

"I knew that if I destroyed the bridge, I could not return, but I could not let an entire world be destroyed, not for my own selfish reasons." He said, sounding more like the man Carrie had begun to know.

"However as the bridge collapsed, Loki and I began to fall into the abyss, until my father showed up, recovered from the Odinsleep, he saved us from the fall, yet Loki proclaimed that he could have destroyed Jotunheim for him, and in some way made him proud, yet my father said 'no', since he never sought to destroy the Frost Giants, preferring to live at peace, Loki felt rejected by us, and let go of his grip, before falling into the abyss" he finished sadly.

"And that's when he met these 'Chitauri'?" she asked.

"Seemingly so"

Afterwards they stood in silence for a moment before Phil called them over to one of the computer terminals.

"As soon as Loki took the doctor we moved Jane Foster." He explained, as they looked at an image of her on the screen.

"We've got an excellent observatory in Traunsee. She was asked to consult their very suddenly yesterday. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She'll be safe." He explained as Thor nodded gratefully.

"Thank you" he said to Phil.

"It's no accident Loki taking Erik Selvig. I dread what he plans for him once he's done." He continued with a look of concern on his face. "Erik is a good man."

"He talks about you a lot" Phil said getting up, the three of them walking away from the monitor.

"You changed his life. You changed everything around here." Phil said as Carrie stood on Thor's right side.

"Things were better as they were" Thor said, his tone tinged with regret. 

"We pretend on Asgard that we're more advanced, but we...we come here battling like Bilgesnipe." He said, Carrie and Phil both looked at him.

"Like what?" Phil asked in confusion. 

"Bilgesnipe. You know; huge, scaly, big antlers." Thor said as he interpreted the creature.

"You don't have those?" he asked in genuine curiosity.

"I don't think so" Phil said with a friendly tone.

"They are repulsive, and they trample everything in their path." He explained as he moved to look out one of the windows.

"When I first came to earth, Loki's rage followed me here and your people paid the price. And now again." He said before pausing.

"In my youth I courted war" he said slowly, Carrie thought back to what he had told her of his past, and place a comforting hand on his arm.

"War hasn't started yet" a voice spoke up, interrupting them.

They turned to see Director Fury on the nearby stairwell.

"You think you can make Loki tell us what the Tesseract is?" Fury asked.

"I do not know." Thor said genuinely.

"Loki's mind is far afield, it's not just power he craves, it's vengeance, upon me. There's no pain that would prise his need from him."

"A lot of guys think that, until the pain starts" Fury said, his tone ominous.

Carrie looked up at Director Fury, unsure of what he meant by that.

"What are you asking me to do?" Thor asked Fury.

"I'm asking, what are you prepared to do?" Fury responded.

"Loki is a prisoner" Thor said as Fury leaned closer.

"Then why do I feel like he's the only person on this boat that wants to be here?" Fury asked as Thor looked at him inquisitively.

Carrie looked at both men as she thought back to Director Fury's earlier talk with Loki, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave.

Almost like he had a reason to be here.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, far away from the Helicarrier on the ground below, a young girl sat alone in her room. She was about six years old, and had dark black hair that went past her shoulders; she was wearing a light blue nightdress and holding a small stuffed teddy bear.

Her Mamma was in own room and screaming again as she painted the walls, the young girl clutched her teddy bear frightened as it rained outside, the window was slamming open and closed and the door kept opening slightly and creaking from the wind. The little girl suddenly her Mamma scream again, she squeezed her teddy bear tighter as the door kept creaking open and closed, she was getting more and more scared.

She crawled under her bed and tried to cover her ears while holding her teddy at the same time, however the sound of the door, mixed together with the window and the rain outside was still being heard by her.

"STOP IT!" She screamed as she began to cry, the room instantly reacted as the door slammed closed and the window came down hard enough the glass broke.

The little girl cried as her bed started to shake and hover off the ground, she closed her eyes and tried to rock herself to sleep as the closet sprung open and her clothes started to fly out onto the floor.

Rachael Lang was in for a long and frightening night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you were wondering, Rachel Lang was the main character of the film 'The Rage: Carrie 2' a 1999 sequel to the 1976 original 'Carrie' film. 
> 
> Rachel Lang was the half sister of Carrie White (they shared the same father) and during her late teens, Rachel began displaying abilities like her sister, and it lead to a rather 'Killer' party after she endured humiliation at the hands of the football team. 
> 
> I decided to include an AU version of Rachel in this story. Though she won't be fully in the story until I get into "Captain America: Winter Soldier". 
> 
> I'll leave it at that for you to come up with some theories of how her character will appear (though I already have it all planned XD) 
> 
> And before you ask, this AU version of Rachel does have a connection to another MCU canon character ( it shouldn't be too hard to figure out who XD)


End file.
